Overview

The basic design of the bow most likely appeared around 3000 B.C. The fundamental technological principle of increasing the accuracy and velocity of a projectile far beyond that which is possible using only the force of the human arm remains unchanged. The simple design of a wooden stave, curved and pulled taught with a tension string, was used as a primary weapon in European warfare until the advent of reliable personal firearms in the eighteenth century. In other areas of the world, the bow enjoyed an even longer tenure as a favored weapon.

The new and redesigned bows of the Middle Ages—the short, long-, and crossbows—and the new class of archers who wielded them were both immortalized in chivalric literature and vilified in public discourse. Technologically simple modifications to the weapon to increase its tactical advantage on...