The Bow & Arrow

[Bleed S & G]

I'm hoping someone knows the answer.. how come every culture, even if they were half-way around the world developed and used the bow & arrow? Europeans to Native Americans.. weird.

 

[Buckeyeskickbuttocks]

I'm hoping someone knows the answer.. how come every culture, even if they were half-way around the world developed and used the bow & arrow? Europeans to Native Americans.. weird.

No idea, but here's my guess...

The bow and arrow is really just a better way to throw a spear. The spear, and the throwing of it, was - I'd think - a pretty universal way to kill food, so I'm not surprised that the bow and arrow would be "universal" too....

Maybe incorrect, but that's what I'd say.

 

[BUCKYLE]

Aliens.

 

[utgrad73]

I'm hoping someone knows the answer.. how come every culture, even if they were half-way around the world developed and used the bow & arrow? Europeans to Native Americans.. weird.

How Early Experimenters Developed the Bow & Arrow | LiveScience

Native Americans migrated past Sarah Palin front porch! The "bow and arrow" went through a bit of R&D along the way, about 40,000 years worth. The flight dynamics and mechanics weren't understood but a little trial and error perfected it. Spears first, then sharp ticks in the eye, then arrows. How they all did this at the same time without the internet is puzzling.

 

[Wingate1217]

I'm hoping someone knows the answer.. how come every culture, even if they were half-way around the world developed and used the bow & arrow? Europeans to Native Americans.. weird.

Not too hard to figure out....Al Gore invented the weapon to combat global warming.....

 

[3074326]

I'm with BUCKYLE.

 

[BUCKYLE]

YOU GOD DAMNED DIRTY APES!

 

[OCBuckWife]

Throw rock. kill food.
Throw sharp stick. kill food better.
Invent way to throw sharp stick even further with minimal effort, kill lots of food best!

Seems like a universal concept to me.

 

[Mike80]

Chuck Norris showed them the Bow and Arrow.

 

[Bleed S & G]

Ok, next question.

Why did the egyptians and mayans build pyramids around the same time, halfway across the world?

 

[BUCKYLE]

Ok, next question.

Why did the egyptians and mayans build pyramids around the same time, halfway across the world?

Seems to me the pyramid would be the structure least likely to fall over at a great height.

 

[Bleed S & G]

Seems to me the pyramid would be the structure least likely to fall over at a great height.

I never thought of this.

I also find it interesting both structures were spirtual..

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, [a] they found a plain in Shinar [b] and settled there.


3 They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel [c] ?because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

 

[OCBuckWife]

As buckyle said, the basic structure of both of them is intended for stability. The incredible feats of construction that went into the entire process makes them spiritual. They are not, were not, simply to live in. Mud bricks and some leaves would do for that. But the pyramids, in both cultures, required massive, coordinated efforts. The only things that made that kind of activity happen was a priesthood/ruling theocracy and gods. Two cultures that were completely powered by a respect for and worship of gods created pyramid building cultures. That's my opionion. They aren't the ony culture that ever did it. Your example fo the tower of babel is another, it just didn't stick around. Poor construction perhaps.

 

[Bleed S & G]

As buckyle said, the basic structure of both of them is intended for stability. The incredible feats of construction that went into the entire process makes them spiritual. They are not, were not, simply to live in. Mud bricks and some leaves would do for that. But the pyramids, in both cultures, required massive, coordinated efforts. The only things that made that kind of activity happen was a priesthood/ruling theocracy and gods. Two cultures that were completely powered by a respect for and worship of gods created pyramid building cultures. That's my opionion. They aren't the ony culture that ever did it. Your example fo the tower of babel is another, it just didn't stick around. Poor construction perhaps.

Noahs flood appears in a lot of cultures too..

It's amazing how man started in one spot, and now we are everywhere.

 

[generaladm]

Going back to the bow and arrow question, I was thinking that the B&A was born from the same process that developed the sling. To borrow OCBW's reasoning: Throw rock-kill food. Propel rock with greater velocity and distance-decrease chance that food kills you first. Then I remembered something I learned about while volunteering at the Sunwatch Indian Village, near Dayton, the atlatl. The atlatl itself is nothing more than a stick about 1.5' long, with a nub or groove at one end, on to which the butt end of a missle was anchored. The missle, termed "dart", is like a hybrid of a short, thin spear, or a long arrow, with a stone or metal tip, and fletching at the butt. Interestingly, the ideal length for an atlatl dart is said to be the length of the atlatl times the value of pi. The motion used in "firing" the dart is much like that of throwing a football. One grasps the base end of the stick, and notches the dart on to the atlatl tip, keeping it in place with the fingers of the firing hand. One then cocks the firing arm with the hand slightly behind the ear, and launches the dart forward by straightening the arm, and releasing the grip on the dart. I tried it a few times, and it's not easy at first. Since the darts I used were not tipped, I imagine the added weight would provide a flatter traectory and increased velocity.

In searching for info on the atlatl, I learned that it dates back to the mid-paleolithic era. I also found an interesting source in Atlatl Bob:

Over 12,000 years ago, hunters tracking herds of the last ice age across the frozen tundra of what is now the state of Alaska became the first immigrants to enter the North American continent. These hunter-gatherers brought with them a weapon that reigned supreme among them and their descendents for thousands of years to come, the Atlatl. It was the first true weapon system developed by humans, originating in Europe over 30,000 years ago and spreading to every corner of the globe that humans occupied. In fact the Atlatl and Dart were used and improved upon for so long by our ancient ancestors that, comparatively speaking, the Bow and Arrow can be considered a recent development in projectile technology. So powerful and effective was the Atlatl that scientist and scholars speculate that it, along with the overkill tactics so common to the human race, caused the extinction of the woolly mammoth in North America before the end of the ice age.

Largely replaced by the Bow and Arrow around the birth of Christ, it was still being used by some Native Americans during the age of discovery, 500 years ago. When Columbus encountered natives using the Atlatl during his voyages to the New World - Europeans who had long forgotten the weapon - soon became familiar with it again. These encounters were most certainly with the business end of the weapon, the European wondering, "what was that?", just before dying.

The Aztecs preferred the Atlatl as a weapon of war. We get the word "Atlatl" (pronounced at-la-tal) from their language. In fact, the Atlatl and Dart were the only weapon Cortez and his Conquistadors feared because it easily piercing Spanish armor, often sending the hapless soldier to meet his Maker. If Montezuma had not mistaken Cortez for the Feathered Serpent God Quantzaquatle, history may have been very different, with the 200 or so Spanish conquistadors being only a footnote in the history of that Nation, foolish invaders who were overwhelmed by superior firepower.

The Bow and Arrow is not the novel invention people today believe it to be, but rather a progression of existing technology. The existing technology, for thousands of years, was that of the Atlatl and Dart. Like the Bow, the Atlatl accelerates a flexible shaft from the rear. For the Bow the flexible shaft is called an Arrow. For the Atlatl the flexible shaft is called a Dart. Research by BPS Engineering has proven that the only difference between these two weapons - and a minor one at that - is the type of acceleration imparted to the rear of the flexible shaft. The Bow is a linear accelerator, accelerating the Arrow from the rear in a straight line. The Atlatl is an angular accelerator, accelerating the Dart from the rear in an arc. But, appearances aside, both physically and mathematically the Bow and the Atlatl are exactly the same type of weapon.

However, the Atlatl and Dart is the first true and natural weapons system of the human race, invented thousands of years before the Bow and Arrow and used longer by humans than any other weapon system yet developed. It was the Atlatl and Dart that first placed humans at the top of the food chain, ranking us above all other predators. It is, in fact, our natural ability to throw a projectile at prey that separates us from all other predators. Predators such as Lions, Tigers, and Bears run faster than humans and have sharp teeth and pointed claws, which we do not. Those are the attributes which make these predators successful. The Atlatl is the supreme expression of our natural ability to throw a projectile at a prey animal and is our advantage over all other predators, which makes us the supreme predator. And when humans used this weapon we did not take more from the environment than the environment could naturally replace itself. Thus, humans and nature, for thousands of years, were in balance with one another.

It can be argued that it was when the Bow and Arrow was developed and subsequently replaced the Atlatl that we humans began to deviate from our natural condition and take more from the environment than the environment could naturally replace itself. The Bow and Arrow was a more efficient technology for what we felt at the time to be a better life, but it in fact turned into the never-ending arms race, which continues today. For thousands of years when humans used the Atlatl we were in harmony with nature; what would our environment be like today if we had never progressed beyond that technology?

You can even buy atlatl replicas from Bob's website.

Atlatl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regarding the bow and arrow, I have a suspicion that it's invention would have been predated slightly by that of a form of the slingshot. I know that Native Americans used animal tendons for their bow strings. What I find interesting is that is signified an evolutionary step beyond the first simple tools. Many of the earlier tools could have been created by observing nature and the behavior of lower animals, but the bow and arrow could only be invented by the human intellect.