History of archery

The bow and arrow are known to have been invented by the end of the Upper Paleolithic.

Projectile points (used on spears or atlatl darts) are known from earlier prehistory, dating to the Middle Paleolithic. Bows eventually replaced spear-throwers as the predominant means for launching sharp projectiles on all continents except Australia.

Archery was an important military and hunting skill before the widespread and efficient use of firearms, throughout classical antiquity and the medieval period. Arrows were especially destructive against unarmoured masses and the use of archers often proved decisive. Mounted archers combined range with speed and mobility. Archery is also featured prominently in the mythologies of many cultures.

Stone Age
The bow seems to have been invented by the late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic. The oldest indication for archery in Europe comes from the Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley north of Hamburg, Germany. They were associated with artifacts of the late Paleolithic (11,000-9,000 BP). 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. They had shallow grooves on the base, clearly indicating that they were shot from a bow.

The oldest bows known so far come from the Holmegård swamp in Denmark. In the 1940s, two bows were found there, dated to about 8,000BP. The Holmegaard bows are made of elm and have flat arms and a D-shaped midsection. The center section is biconvex. The complete bow is 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 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.

The oldest Neolithic bows in Europe have been found in anaerobic layers dating between 7,400-7,200BP, the earliest layer of settlement at the lake settlement at La Draga, Banyoles, Catalonia. The intact specimen is short at 1.08m, has a D-shaped cross-section, and is made of yew wood.

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.

Stone points which may have been arrowheads were made in Africa by about 64,000 years ago.

North America
Archery seems to have arrived in the Americas with the Arctic small tool tradition, about 2,500 BC, spreading south into the temperate zones as early as 2,000 BC, and was widely known among the indigenous peoples of North America from about 500 AD. An archery game was widely practiced among the tribes of the Southern US which involved shooting at a hoop rolled with a forked stick. Points were scored based on how the arrow landed. The competition was popularly related to notions of fertility. Tribesmen of the Great Plains became extremely adept at archery on horseback.

Bronze Age
The ancient Egyptian people took to archery as early as 5,000 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". Some Egyptian deities are also connected to archery.

Iron Age
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. Xenophon describes long bows used to great effect in Corduene.

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.

The bow and arrow constituted the classical Indian weapon of warfare, from the Vedic period, until the advent of Islam. Some Rigvedic hymns lay emphasis on the use of the bow and arrow.

Ancient history
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.

Mounted archers were the main military force of most of the equestrian nomads from the Cimmerians to the Mongols.

Greco-Roman antiquity
The people of Crete practiced archery and Cretan mercenary archers were in great demand. Crete was known for its unbroken tradition of archery.

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. Herakles and 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 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". By the 4th century, 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 mounted archers belonging to the Hun invaders, and later Eastern Roman armies relied heavily on mounted archery.

East Asia
For millennia, archery has played a pivotal role in Chinese history. In particular, archery featured prominently in ancient Chinese culture and philosophy: archery was one of the Six Noble Arts of the Zhou dynasty (1146–256 BCE); archery skill was a virtue for Chinese emperors; Confucius himself was an archery teacher; and Lie Zi (a Daoist philosopher) was an avid archer. Because the cultures associated with Chinese society spanned a wide geography and time range, the techniques and equipment associated with Chinese archery are diverse.

In East Asia the Joseon Korea adopted a military-service examination system from China, and South Korea remains a particularly strong performer at Olympic archery competitions even to this day.

South Asia
Detailed accounts of training methodologies in early India concern archery, considered to be an essential martial skill in early India. Legendary figures like Drona, are depicted as masters in the art of archery. Mythological figures such as Arjuna, Eklavya, Karna, Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Shatrughan are also associated with archery.

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 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, 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

In Europe the last regular unit armed with bows was also a part of the oldest regular unit armed with gunpowder weapons, the Archers’ Company of the Honourable Artillery Company.

In Eastern Europe and the Asian Steppe however archery continued to play an important part in warfare, although now restricted to mounted archery. The Ottoman Empire still fielded auxiliary cavalry which was noted for its use of bows from horseback. This practice was continued by the Ottoman subject nations, despite the Empire itself being a proponent of early firearms. The practice declined after the Crimean Khanate was finally absorbed by Russia; however mounted archers remained in the Ottoman order of battle until the post 1826 reforms to the Ottoman Army.

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." 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, not lack of appropriate weapons.

The last recorded use of bows in battle in Britain seems to have been a skirmish at Bridgnorth; in October 1642, during the English Civil War, an impromptu militia was effective against un-armoured musketmen. The most recent death in war from British archery was probably in 1940, on the retreat to Dunkirk, when Jack Churchill 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". In Ireland, Geoffrey Keating (c. 1569 - c. 1644) mentions archery as having been practiced "down to a recent period within our own memory" 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. Bows and arrows saw considerable use in the 2007–2008 Kenyan crisis.

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 with the death of the last bowyer in the 1930s. 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, popular use of their traditional longbows never died out. The British have also maintained a continuous tradition of longbow use, with a major revival as an upper-class pursuit from about 1780-1840. In China, the improvement of firearms and other circumstances of 20th century China led to the demise of archery as a military and ritual practice, and for much of the 20th century only one traditional bow and arrow workshop remained. However, in the beginning of the 21st century, there has been revival in interest among craftsmen looking to construct bows and arrows, as well as in practicing technique in the traditional Chinese style. 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. Archery is the national sport of the Kingdom of Bhutan.

Modern archery revival
After the American Civil War, two Confederate veterans, Will and Maurice 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. Thomas Williams knew something about English-style Archery (using a longbow, though it is unclear where he gained this knowledge) 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. 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. They hunted in Alaska and Africa and took several large game animals.

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. From the 1920s, professional engineers took an interest in archery, previously the exclusive field of traditional craft experts. 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).