Archery History

The Archer shoots arrows powered by the elasticity of the bow and its string. It is useed both for hunting and war. Many bow designs have been used in different cultures and time periods. Common designs are; solid or laminated wood. A bone-wood-hide composite was used by the Sami, the Japanese and the Turko-Mongol peoples of Asis.

In modern times, the plastic and compound bows dominate the bows for sport and hunting. Modern-day use of bows for hunting is a matter of controversy in some areas but is common and accepted in others. Bow hunting is also still practiced in traditional cultures worldwide.

A yumi is the Japanese term for bows. It is a Japanese longbow used in the practice of Kyudo, the "way of the bow" that is the Japanese art of archery.

The artillery forms of a bow are ballista and arbalest which Medieval artillery used during sieges. They are heavy war engines for hurling large stones and other missiles, during sieges. An arbalest is really a huge crossbow with steel prod (the "bow" part). It was much more powerful than a crossbow with a wood prod.

The automatic form of a bow is a crossbow where the bow is fixed transversely on a wooden stock grooved to direct the arrow (quarrel)) .

The bow seems to have been invented in the late Palaeolithic (Palaeolithic: Second part of the Stone Age beginning about 750,00 to 500,000 years BC and lasting until the end of the last ice age about 8,500 years BC) or early Mesolithic era about 15,000 years ago). The oldest indication for its use in Europe come from Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley north of Hamburg , Germany and date from the late Palaeolithic Hamburgian culture (9000-8000 BC). The arrows were made of pine wood and consisted of a main-shaft and a 15-20 cm long fore-shaft with a flint point.

The oldest bows known so far come from the Holmegård swamp in Denmark. In the 1940s, two bows were found there. They are made of elm wood and have flat arms and a D-shaped midsection. The middle part is biconvex. The complete bow is 1.50 m (5 ft. long). Although bows of Holmegaard-type were in use untill the Bronze Age ; the convexity of the midsection decreases through time.

Mesolithic arrows have been found in England, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. They were often rather long (up to 120 cm [4 ft.]) and made of hazel (hazel: The fine-grained wood of a hazelnut tree (genus Corylus) and the hazel tree (Australian genus Pomaderris)) (Corylus avellana), wayfaring tree Viburnum lantana and chokecherry (Cornus alba). Some still have flint arrow-heads preserved; others have blunt wooden ends for hunting birds and small game. The ends show traces of fletching which was fastened on with birch-tar.

Most Neolithic bows are made of yew, the modern nickname of a well-preserved natural wood found in the Ötztaler Alps. The "iceman" carried an unfinished yew longbow, with a bowstring of nettle or flax fibre.

In the Levant , arrow-shaft straighteners are known from the Natufian culture . The Khiamian and PPN A represents the early neolithic in the levantine shouldered Khiam-points are most certainly arrowheads.

The bow became the main weapon of war used in the Middle East by the Assyrians and Egyptians who fired it from chariots to great effect. The Greeks and Romans did not find this technique useful. Advances in armor made the bow less effective and the both often campaigned in hilly or forested areas that were unsuited to chariots. The development of horse archer or mounted archer is a cavalryman armed with a bow.

The people of the Eurasian steppe brought the bow back to the fore. Using composite bows, steppe peoples such as the Huns and Mongols became a dominant force in world affairs

In the Middle Ages the English developed the longbow. It was an extremely effective weapon in battle and could penetrate armor from a considerable distance. The longbow however is a difficult weapon to master and requires years of training. In medieval England and Wales, the longbow became a popular weapon and archery a popular pastime.

Archery did not become popular in other feudal countries however because a trained archer could use a powerful bow to bring down a noble Knight. It put too much power in the hands of the peasantry and therefore, the crossbow became the preferred weapon. It was slow to reload, but easier to use than a longbow but did not have the longbow's ability to penetrate armor.

The development of gunpowder, a mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur in a 75:15:10 ratio and muskets and the growing size of armies slowly led to the replacement of bows as a weapon of war, causing them to be being relegated to sport and hobby. However, even today crossbows still have some use by special forces due to their silent killing ability.

Bows are found all over the world, except for Australia where the main projectile weapons were spears and boomerangs.

The Hun bow is an asymmetric, composite and recurve bow A recurve bow is one that, in contrast to the simple longbow, has ends that curve outward. It was invented in Central Asia and carried to Europe first by the Huns, a nomadic people that invaded Europe in the 4th century. The advantage of a recurve bow is that the shape curves back on itself. It is this design that gives the bows tremendous power compared to their size.

Its asymmetric shape allowed the bow to be increased in size without restricting its use from the saddle of a horse. The lower part had to be shorter to facilitate movement across the back and neck of the horse, but the upper part was not so constrained and could be longer. The result was a stronger, longer-range bow than those of the Germanic tribes of Europe. Quite simply, the users of the Hun bow could shoot down their enemies before they could use their bows. The asymmetry, however, led to less accuracy, although this was offset to some extent by the fact that the weapon was a composite bow.

The Hungarian Bow
This is an improvement of the Hun bow. It is a symmetric, composite and recurve bow invented in Central Asia. It improved the Hun bow by lengthening its lower part until both halves were of equal size. This symmetry increased both its range and accuracy. If the archer was using the Hungarian bow while mounted, he or she needed to stand up in the saddle, an action that was impossible until the invention of the stirrup.

The Longbow was a powerful wooden bow drawn by hand; usually 5-6 feet long that was developed in Wales and became the chief weapon of the English from the 13th century until the invention of gunpowder. As its name implies, the longbow fires at a far range than conventional bows of the time. Its bow string is longer than usual. The bow was make from yew which has a natural composite of sap wood and heart wood. The heart wood is on the inside of the bow and resists compression and the outer sapwood stretches. This makes a powerful natural spring.
Crossbow
The Crossbow is a bow fixed transversely on a wooden stock grooved to direct the arrow. It is an automatic bow: The bow string is tied on a wooden support that holds it. When a trigger is pressed, the wooden support releases the bow string, releasing the arrow. The crossbow require less strength to fire it but more to load.
Composite Bow
A composite bow is made from different materials laminated together, usually applied under tension. The Hun and Hungarian bows use horn on rear and with sinew on front. They are recurve bows as the shape curves back on itself and it is this design that gives the bows tremendous power compared with their size.
Modern Composite Bows
Modern Composite bows such as a compound bow use laminated wood, plastic, and fibreglass. These are little affected by changes of temperature and humidity.
Compound Bow
A compound bow is usually a composite recurve bow that, in contrast to the simple bow longbow, has ends that curve outward coupled with pulleys. It is little affected by changes of temperature and humidity and gives superior accuracy, velocity, and distance in comparison to the classic longbow. They were first developed and patented by Holless Wilbur Allen in the USA in the 1960s and have become increasingly popular.
A composite bow is made from different materials laminated together, usually applied under tension. Modern composite bows use laminated wood, plastic, and fibreglass. These are little affected by changes of temperature and humidity.
With a traditional single string bow as the string is pulled back the tension increases, so the bow must be aimed and released quickly. On release the string rapidly accelerates to its fastest and then decelerates for the rest strings return to stationary. There are mechanical advantages to pulleys: the draw weight does not increase as the bow is drawn enabling the archer to hold the bow fully drawn and take time to aim.
There are very few people alive today who could shoot accurately with a single string using the draw weights of the longbows found on the Mary Rose. The pulleys enable the archer to draw a bow with a much higher draw weight than they could manage with a conventional single stringed bow. Using pulleys, the string continues to accelerate from the release to rest so imparting more power and speed to the arrow.
Archers in modern archery competitions usually uses a release aid to hold the string steady. This attaches to the bowstring at a point and permits the archer to release the string with a pull of a trigger.