Bow and Arrow
The bow and arrow is an early weapon that provides greater power to its user than a hand-thrown instrument by slowly storing energy which is quickly expended when the bowstring is released. The bow and arrow is thought to have been invented in northern Africa and southern Europe around 15,000 b.c. It was widespread across Europe by around 9000 b.c. The bow and arrow was an important hunting tool and weapon across Asia and the Americas as well. Most early bows were simple devices, constructed of slightly curved springy wood, and strung with gut. But even some very early bows have been found in Siberia made of a composite of wood and antler, revealing sophisticated craftsmanship. Arrow-making technique is believed to have been similar to the way some modern aboriginal peoples still make them. Shafts of wood were passed through holes bored in bone or antler and bent until they were straight. Then the shaft was passed through another hole, which shaved the stick to a precise diameter. Arrows needed to be consistent in weight and diameter for the bow to shoot well, and even prehistoric peoples must have possessed considerable expertise to manufacture reliable arrows. Most arrows were weighted with feathers. The sharpened end would have been hardened in fire by early peoples, and later tipped with metal.
Simple bows could be deadly weapons, and they were small and light enough to be used from horseback or even from a moving chariot. Arrows could also be wrapped in incendiary material and lit just before being shot, to set fire to distant targets. The Greeks are credited with developing a crossbow around 400 b.c., a more complex bow that could send arrows off with a higher velocity than simple bows. Called a gastraphete, it was a bow with one end that could be rested on the ground while the other end had a wooden semicircle which pressed against the archer's stomach. A soldier used both hands to pull the bow back, the bowstring was caught in a hook, and the arrow or bolt was laid into a trough. After aiming, the soldier pulled a trigger which released the bowstring. The next step was to increase the user's ability to draw back the bow. Medieval European artisans designed crossbows with sophisticated mechanisms for loading. Since there was a limit on how much even two hands could pull it back, crossbows were designed with a small winch called a cranequin controlled by a wheel with notches, and a ratchet to keep the wheel turning in one direction. A hook engaged the bowstring, and by cranking the cranequin, the bowman pulled the string back. By the fourteenth century, crossbows were being made of steel, as well as of horn and wood. Medieval crossbows could fire heavy bolts that were shorter than arrows but equipped with heavier points or heads. The big drawback with all crossbows, however, was the time it took for the user to load and fire.
Another type of bow that became famous was the English longbow, which came into use around the thirteenth century. Originally discovered in Wales, the longbow was five to six feet (1.5 to 1.8 m) long with a yard-long (.92 m) arrow that could be sent a maximum distance of 500 yards (457 m). A good archer could fire six of these arrows per minute. These longbows were responsible for the English victory over France at Crecy in 1346, where the French knights were struck before they could reach the English lines. English longbows were usually strung with linen or hemp. Though simpler and actually less powerful than the crossbow of the same era, because they could be aimed and fired quickly, they gave England a distinct military advantage.
The use of the bow and arrow persisted in Europe well after the introduction of in the thirteenth century. Composite weapons, such as cannons that shot arrows or crossbows that shot bullets, were manufactured even up until the nineteenth century. But by the end of the nineteenth century the increasing power of the gun had made the bow and arrow obsolete as all but an archaic hunting weapon. Bowhunting was kept alive in the United States by a few dedicated sportmen. After the American Civil War, ex-Confederate soldiers were not allowed to own firearms, and some turned to bowhunting. The book The Witchery of Archery, written by ex-Confederate Maurice Thompson in 1878, is credited with sparking the formation of hundreds of American bowhunting clubs. Another American proponent of bowhunting, Dr. Saxton Pope, learned bow craft from Ishi, the last member of a tribe of Stone Age Indians discovered in San Francisco in the early 1900s. PopeÕs writings were also influential in keeping interest in bowhunting alive.
Bowhunting resurged in the United States after the invention of the modern compound crossbow by H.W. Allen in the 1960s. The compound crossbow uses internal wheels in a pulley system to draw back the string. Both powerful and compact, this modern crossbow gained great popularity. Crossbows in the 1990s are increasingly sophisticated, made from new materials such as aluminum/graphite composites or from a fiberglass-like material called CarbonGlass. Many use electronic sights or fiber-optic sights. Bow design is becoming simpler, with the number of wheels reduced from the four to six standard in the 1970s to only two or even one. Arrows in the 1990s are made from aluminum or graphite, and are light-weight as well as strong.
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