History of archery

Projectile points are known from early in prehistory. The earlier examples were probably used on spears or on atlatl darts. Examination of the points alone does not allow the method of launching to be determined, and, as bows are normally made of perishable materials, it is possible that bows were widely used long before the earliest surviving known examples. Bows eventually replaced the atlatl as the predominant means for launching sharp projectiles on all continents except Australia.

Classical civilizations fielded large numbers of archers in their armies; archery was an important military and hunting skill before the use of gunpowder. Arrows were especially destructive against unarmoured masses and the use of archers often proved decisive. Mounted horse archers combined range with speed and mobility. Archery also figured prominently in the mythologies of many cultures.

Origins

The bow seems to have been invented by the late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic. The oldest indication for its use in Europe comes from the Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley north of Hamburg, Germany and date from the late Paleolithic Hamburgian culture (9000-8000 BC). The arrows were made of pine and consisted of a mainshaft and a 15-20 centimetre (6-8 inches) long foreshaft with a flint point. There are no known definite earlier bows.

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 and have flat arms and a D-shaped midsection. The center section is biconvex. The complete bow is nowrap|1.50 m (5 ft) long. Bows of Holmegaard-type were in use until the Bronze Age; the convexity of the midsection has decreased with time.

Mesolithic pointed shafts have been found in England, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. They were often rather long (up to nowrap|120 cm [4 ft] ) and made of European hazel ("Corylus avellana"), wayfaring tree ("Viburnum lantana") and other small woody shoots. 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.

Bows and arrows have been present in Egyptian culture since its predynastic origins. The "Nine Bows" symbolize the various peoples that had been ruled over by the pharaoh since Egypt was united.

In the Levant, artifacts which may be arrow-shaft straighteners are known from the Natufian culture, (ca. 12.800-10.300 BP) onwards. The Khiamian and PPN A shouldered Khiam-points may well be arrowheads.

Classical civilizations, notably the Persians, Parthians, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese fielded large numbers of archers in their armies. Arrows were destructive against massed formations, and the use of archers often proved decisive. The Sanskrit term for archery, dhanurveda, came to refer to martial arts in general.

Egypt

The ancient Egyptian people took to archery as early as 5000 years ago. Archery was widespread by the time of the earliest pharaohs and was practiced both for hunting and use in warfare. Legendary figures from the tombs of Thebes are depicted giving "lessons in archery"; [Wilson, John (1956). "The Culture of Ancient Egypt" pg 186. University of ChicagoPress] Some Egyptian deities are also connected to archery. [Traunecker, Claude (2001). "The Gods of Egypt " pg 29. Cornell University Press]

Mesopotamia

The Assyrians and Babylonians extensively used the bow and arrow; the Old Testament has multiple references to archery as a skill identified with the ancient Hebrews.

The Chariot warriors of the Kassites relied heavily on the bow. The Nuzi texts detail the bows and the number of arrows assigned to the chariot crew. Archery was essential to the role of the light horse drawn chariot as a vehicle of warfare. [Drews, Roberts (1993). "The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 B.C." pg 119. Princeton University Press]

Indian Subcontinent

The bow and arrow constituted the classical Indian weapon of warfare, from the Vedic period, until the advent of Islam. [Zimmer, Heinrich and Campbell, Joseph (1969). "Philosophies of India" pg 140. Princeton UniversityPress.] The Aryans used bows and arrows, often on war chariots. [Drews, Robert (1993). "The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 B.C." pg 119. Princeton UniversityPress] Some Rigvedic hymns lay emphasis on the useof the bow and arrow. ["With the bow let us win cows, with the bow let us win the contest and violent battles with the bow. The bow ruins the enemy's pleasure; with the bow let us conquer all corners of the world." -- Drews, Roberts (1993). "The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe Ca. 1200 B.C." pg 125. Princeton UniversityPress] Detailed accounts of training methodologies in early India concern archery, considered to be an essential martial skill in early India. [Scharfe, Hartmut (2002). "Education in Ancient India" pg 271. Brill Academic Publishers]

Legendary figures like Drona, are shown to be masters in the art of archery. [Van Buitenen, J. A. B. (1980). "The Mahabharata: The Book of the Beginning" pg 153. University of ChicagoPress] Mythological figures such as Arjun, Eklavya, Karna, Rama, Lakshmana, Bharat and Shatrughan are also associated with archery.

Northern Asia

Chinese use of archery dates back to the Shang dynasty. Shang army officer categories included the "ya" and "shi" (commanders), "ma" (chariot officers), and "she" (archery officers). [Trigger, Bruce G. (2003). "Understanding Early Civilizations: A Comparative Study" pg 254. Cambridge University Press] The Chinese used war chariots with archers. The following Zhou dynasty saw contests of archery being held in the presence of nobility. [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761551756/Archery.html#s2 "Archery," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007 © 1997–2007 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.] ] By the end of the Zhou period, works on history, music, ritual, archery, and other topics were recorded on bamboo or wood. [M. Lewis, Charlton, Scott Morton, W. "China: Its History and Culture" pg 24. McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 0071412794]

In East Asia the ancient Korean civilizations were well-known for their archery skills, [http://www.turtlepress.com/info_korean_archery.asp Korean archery] at [http://www.turtlepress.com turtlepress.com] ] [ [http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu/grayson/koreanarchery/koreaarchery.shtml Korea archery] at [http://anthromuseum.missouri.edu anthromuseum.missouri.edu] ] and South Korea remains a particularly strong performer at Olympic archery competitions even to this day. [ [http://www.lycos.com/info/archery--south-korea.html Archery in South Korea] at [http://www.lycos.com/info/archery lycos.com/info/archery] ] [ [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2000/archery/news/2000/09/18/skorea_archery/ "South sweep,"] September 28, 2000 at [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com sportsillustrated.cnn.com] ] Horse archers were the main military force of most of the Equestrian Nomads.

North America

Archery was widely known among the indigenous peoples of North America, from pre-Columbian times. .

Europe

Early History

practiced archery and Cretan mercenary archers were in great demand. [Cambridge University Press (2000). "Cambridge Ancient History" pg 174.] Crete was known for its unbroken tradition of archery. [Kirk, Geoffrey etc (1993). "The Iliad: a commentary" pg 136. Cambridge UniversityPress]

The Greek god Apollo is the god of archery, also of plague and the sun, metaphorically perceived as shooting invisible arrows, Artemis the goddess of wild places and hunting. Odysseus and other mythological figures are often depicted with a bow.

During the invasion of India, Alexander the Great personally took command of the shield-bearing guards, foot-companions, archers, Agrianians and horse-javelin-men and led them against the Kamboja clans—the Aspasios of Kunar valleys, the Guraeans of the Guraeus (Panjkora) valley, and the Assakenois of the Swat and Buner valleys. [The Ashvayanas living on river Guraeus (modern river Panjkora), which are the Gauri of Mahabharata, were also known as Gorys or Guraios, modern Ghori or Gori, a wide spread tribe, branches of which are still to be found on the Panjkora and on both sides of the Kabul at the point of its confluence with Landai (See: History of Punjab, Vol I, 1997, p 227, Publication Bureau, Punjabi University, Patiala (Editors) Dr L. M. Joshi, Dr Fauja Singh). The clan name Gore or Gaure is also found among the modern Kamboj people of Punjab and it is stated that the Punjab Kamboj Gaure/Gore came from the Kunar valley to Punjab at some point in time in the past (Ref: These Kamboja People, 1979, 122; Kambojas Through the Ages, 2005, p 131, Kirpal Singh).]

The early Romans had very few archers, if any. As their empire grew, they recruited auxiliary archers from other nations. Julius Caesar's armies in Gaul included Cretan archers, and Vercingetorix his enemy ordered "all the archers, of whom there was a very great number in Gaul, to be collected". [ http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10657/10657.txt Caius Julius Caesar. Caesar's Commentaries. Translated by W. A. Macdevitt.] By the 300s, archers with powerful composite bows were a regular part of Roman armies throughout the empire. After the fall of the western empire, the Romans came under severe pressure from the highly skilled horse archers belonging to the Hun invaders, and later Eastern Roman armies relied heavily on mounted archery. Greece and Rome at War,Peter Connolly, Adrian Keith Goldsworthy. Greenhill Books 1998 ISBN-10: 185367303X ISBN-13: 978-1853673030]

Middle ages in Europe

During the Middle Ages, archery in warfare was not as prevalent and dominant in Western Europe as popular myth sometimes dictates. Archers were quite often the lowest-paid soldiers in an army or were conscripted from the peasantry. This was due to the cheap nature of the bow and arrow, as compared to the expense needed to equip a professional man-at-arms with good armour and a sword. Professional archers required a lifetime of training and expensive bows to be effective, and were thus generally rare in Europe (see English longbow). The bow was seldom used to decide battles and often viewed as a "lower class weapon" or as a toy, by the nobility. However, among the Vikings, even royalty such as Magnus Barelegs used archery effectively, [Magnus Bareleg's Saga [http://oaks.nvg.org/hk11.html] ] and the Muslims used archery, presumably also in their numerous raiding expeditions all over the Western European seaboard, in the 9th and 10th centuries.

By the time of the Hundred Years' War, the English had learned how to employ massed archery as an instrument of tactical dominance, with their English longbows. Tournaments were sponsored, with prizes for winners, among other ways of encouraging archery. There was therefore much motivation and incentive to become an expert with the longbow and the various English kings were able to recruit thousands of archers per year.

The crossbow became quite popular during the Middle Ages. However, the renowned armour-piercing power of the crossbow caused fear amongst the well-armoured nobility and it was banned by the Second Council of the Lateran, although to little avail.

Decline, last uses, and survival of archery

The advent of firearms eventually rendered bows obsolete in warfare. Despite the high social status, ongoing utility, and widespread pleasure of archery in England, Korea, China, Japan, Turkey, Armenia, America, Egypt, and elsewhere, almost every culture that gained access to even early firearms used them widely, to the relative neglect of archery. Early firearms were vastly inferior in rate-of-fire, and were very susceptible to wet weather. However, they had longer effective range [Korean Traditional Archery. Duvernay TA, Duvernay NY. Handong Global University, 2007] and were tactically superior in the common situation of soldiers shooting at each other from behind obstructions. They also required significantly less training to use properly, in particular penetrating steel armour without any need to develop special musculature. Armies equipped with guns could thus provide superior firepower by sheer weight of numbers, and highly-trained archers became obsolete on the battlefield. "Have them bring as many guns as possible, for no other equipment is needed. Give strict orders that all men, even the samurai, carry guns." [Asano Yukinaga, 1598 CE, letter to his father, quoted in The Samurai, by S.R. Turnbull, Osprey, London 1977. ISBN 0 85045 097 7]

The sole exceptions may be the Comanches of North America, whose mounted archery was more effective than muzzle-loading guns. (Other Plains Indians fought mostly on foot, and usually found guns to be superior weapons when they did so.) "After... about 1800, most Comanches began to discard muskets and pistols and to rely on their older weapons." [T.R. Fehrenbach. Comanches, the history of a people. Vintage Books. London, 2007. ISBN 9780099520559. First published in the USA by Alfred Knopf, 1974. Page 125.] Repeating firearms, however, were superior in turn, and the Comanches adopted them when they could. Bows remained effective hunting weapons for skilled horse archers, used to some extent by all Native Americans on the Great Plains to hunt buffalo as long as there were buffalo to hunt. The last Comanche hunt was in 1878, and it failed for lack of buffalo. [T.R. Fehrenbach. Comanches, the history of a people. Vintage Books. London, 2007. ISBN 9780099520559. First published in the USA by Alfred Knopf, 1974. Page 553.]

The last recorded use of bows, in an English battle, seems to have been a skirmish at Bridgnorth, in October 1642, during the English Civil War. [ "The Garrisons of Shropshire during the Civil War" refers to a letter written by a John Norton, dated October 5 1642 from Bridgnorth describing the incident.] The most recent death in war from British archery was probably in 1940, on the retreat to Dunkirk, when a former archery champion who had brought his bows on active service "was delighted to see his arrow strike the centre German in the left of the chest and penetrate his body". [The archer's craft: A sheaf of notes on certain matters concerning archers and archery, the making of archers' tackle and the art of hunting with the bow. Adrian Eliot Hodgkin. Faber 1951] In Ireland, Geoffrey Keating (c. 1569 - c. 1644) mentions archery as having been practiced "down to a recent period within our own memory" [Geoffrey Keating. The History of Ireland, translated into English and preface by David Comyn, Patrick S. Dinneen. http://celt.ucc.ie/published/T100054.html. Accessed 9th December 2007.] Archery continued in some areas that were subject to limitations on the ownership of arms, such as the Scottish Highlands during the repression that followed the decline of the Jacobite cause, and the Cherokees after the Trail of Tears. The Tokugawa shogunate severely limited the import and manufacture of guns, and encouraged traditional martial skills among the samurai; towards the end of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, some rebels fell back on the use of bows and arrows. Archery remained an important part of the military examinations until 1894 in Korea and 1904 in China. Ongoing use of bows and arrows in some African conflicts has been reported in the 21st century, and the Sentinelese still use bows as part of a lifestyle scarcely touched by outside contact. A remote group in Brazil, recently photographed from the air, aimed bows at the aeroplane. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7427417.stm BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Amazonian archers] ] Bows and arrows have seen considerable use in the 2008 ethnic clashes in Kenya.

Traditional archery remained in minority use for sport and for hunting in many areas long after its military disuse. In Turkey, its last revival for this purpose took place with the encouragement of Mahmud II in the 1820s, but the art, and that of constructing composite bows, fell out of use in the later 1800s. The rest of the Middle East also lost the continuity of its archery tradition at this time. In Korea, the transformation from military training to healthy pastime was led by Emperor Gojong, and is the basis of a popular modern sport. Japanese continue to make and use their unique traditional equipment. Among the Cherokees and the British, popular use of longbows never entirely died out. In China, the revival of archery continued until the Cultural Revolution, when it was suppressed; the last of the traditional Chinese bowmakers is now working again. [http://www.atarn.org/chinese/juyuan/juyuan.htm Ju Yuan Hao] In modern times, mounted archery continues to be practiced in some Asian countries but is not used in international competition. Modern Hungarians have revived mounted archery as a competitive sport. [ [http://www.atarn.org/magyar/magyar_link.htm Magyar index ] ] Archery is the national sport of the Kingdom of Bhutan. [ [http://www.atarn.org/tibet_bhutan/bhutan/bhutan01.htm Bhutanese Traditional Archery] ]

Modern primitive archery

After the American Civil War, two Confederate veterans, Maurice and Will Thompson, revived archery in America. The two brothers and Thomas Williams (a former slave) lived in the wild in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia. As ex-Confederate soldiers they were not allowed to own guns, so they needed other ways to hunt for food. For some reason, Thomas Williams knew something about English-style Archery (using a longbow) and showed Maurice and Will. Later, Maurice wrote a book, "The Witchery of Archery," which became a best seller and enthused people about the sport of archery. In 1879 the National Archery Association was formed. However, public interest in archery soon subsided.

That all changed when Ishi came out of hiding in California in 1911. Ishi was the last of the Yahi Indian tribe. He lived for his last five years at the University of California at Berkeley Anthropology Museum. [Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America (Paperback) by Theodora Kroeber. Republished University of California Press 2004. ISBN-10: 0520240375 ISBN-13: 978-0520240377] His doctor, Saxton Pope, was an instructor of surgery at the medical school. Dr. Pope was very interested in Ishi and his culture, especially archery. Ishi willingly taught Dr. Pope about his culture, how to make tools the way the Yahi did, and how to hunt using a bow and arrow. Soon, Dr. Pope was joined by archery-enthusiast Arthur Young.

Ishi died in 1916 of tuberculosis. Dr. Pope and Mr. Young did not lose interest in archery, and set about proving that archery could be used to bag large game. [Saxton Pope. Hunting with the bow and arrow. New York. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1925.] They hunted in Alaska and Africa and took several large game animals. [Saxton Pope. Adventurous bowmen. Field Notes On African Archery. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York. 1926.]

Because Dr. Pope and Mr. Young demonstrated to Western society that archery was effective on not only small game, but large game as well, archery did not lose public interest so easily. Many methods that Ishi taught Dr. Pope are still used today by primitive archers. From the 1920s, professional engineers took an interest in archery, previously the exclusive field of traditional craft experts. [Hickman, C.N., Forrest Nagler and Paul E. Klopsteg. Archery: The Technical Side. A compilation of scientific and technical articles on theory, construction, use and performance of bows and arrows, reprinted from journals of science and of archery. National Field Archery Association 1947] They led the commercial development of new forms of bow including the modern recurve and compound bow. These modern forms are now dominant in modern Western archery; traditional bows are in a minority. In the 1980s, the skills of traditional archery were revived by American enthusiasts, and combined with the new scientific understanding. Much of this expertise is available in the "Traditional Bowyer's Bibles" (see Further Reading).

References

ee also

*Kyūdō, Japanese archery
*Yabusame, Japanese horseback archery
*Gungdo, Korean archery
*Turkish archery

External links

* [http://www.societyofarcher-antiquaries.org Society of Archer-Antiquaries]
* [http://www.archerylibrary.com Archery Library] Online Archery Books with historical content
* [http://www.atarn.org/frameindex.htm Asian Traditional Archery Research Network]

Further reading

* "The Traditional Bowyers Bible Volume 1". The Lyons Press, 1992. ISBN 1-58574-085-3
* "The Traditional Bowyers Bible Volume 2". The Lyons Press, 1992. ISBN 1-58574-086-1
* "The Traditional Bowyers Bible Volume 3". The Lyons Press, 1994. ISBN 1-58574-087-X
* "The Traditional Bowyers Bible Volume 4". The Lyons Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9645741-6-8