Complex Thinking Behind the Bow and Arrow

Science News ^ | Monday, June 25, 2012 | Universitaet Tubingen, via AlphaGalileo

[SunkenCiv]

Using archaeological finds and ethnological parallels, the two researchers reconstructed the steps needed to make a bow and arrows. These are complimentary tools -- separate, but developed interdependently. The bow is the controlling element, while the arrows can be used more flexibly and are interchangeable. About 2.5 million years ago, humans first used tools to make other tools then to make tools assembled from different parts to make a unit with particular qualities, such as wooden spears with stone spearheads (ca. 200,000-300,000 years ago.) The bow and arrow and other complementary tool sets made it possible for prehistoric humans to greatly increase the flexibility of their reactions.

There are many basic complementary tool sets: needle and thread, fishing rod and line, hammer and chisel. The bow and arrow are a particularly complex example. The reconstruction of the technique shows that no less than ten different tools are needed to manufacture a simple bow and arrows with foreshafts. It takes 22 raw materials and three semi-finished goods (binding materials, multi-component glue) and five production phases to make a bow, and further steps to make the arrows to go with it. The study was able to show a high level of complexity in the use of tools at an early stage in the history of homo sapiens.

[norton]

How I survived childhood I will never know!

Good thing you avoided all that lead based paint.

[Daffynition]

When talking about a poster, it is common to.......

:)

[Mormon Cricket]

Complex thinking American style. Pie plates @ 120 yards.

[knarf]

"The arrow is easy to understand how it came about. The bow is a little puzzling. There must’ve been a use for a springy piece of wood prior to the bow and arrow. But I don’t know what it was."

I would imagine just walking through the flora single file and getting snapped in the face by a branch that the inconsiderate guy in front allowed (ala Three Stooges) ... would trigger a thought or two.

Did I just say trigger ?

[knarf]

It would take two days for us to talk and have a beer if I visited you.

Just staring at and digesting all that your home has would be a lifetime of conversation

[SunkenCiv]

“Belly shooters”:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/226774/gastrophetes

[Sherman Logan]

As I recall, the Mongols pioneered a laminated bow

Much older than that. The composite bow goes back to at least 2000 BC and was probably invented either by the Asian ancestors of the Mongols on the eastern steppe or the Indo-European nomads on the western steppe.

Whoever came up with it first, it was so amazingly effective it quickly spread over the whole steppe and to those people with whom they were in contact.

The disciplined mounted archer using a composite bow was the most effective weapon system in the world, properly used, for thousands of years. Only eclipsed by volley-fire muskets, perhaps around 1500.

And even then the musketeers couldn't make the mounted archers fight when they didn't want to, because they couldn't catch them.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Good thing you avoided all that lead based paint. ***

Funny. Back in 1956 we used to get cool by running behind the city truck spraying DDT to kill mosquitoes.

[wildbill]

It is impossible that primitive man without a physics textbook could reason out the idea that by putting a sinew between the two ends of a stick and then putting another stick on the sinew you would send the second stick outward with enough force to do something like kill an animal.

Does anyone really believe that Man was capable of this kind of creative reasoning—putting sinew and sticks together— thousand of years ago? HAH!

If not, could the bow and arrow be caused by three items combining in some happy accident of Fate? What are the odds on that? Triple Hah!

If any of these scenarios were reasonably possible, then “Oogah the Bowmaker” would be the parent of us all since he’d have owned all the women. And DNA would show it.

No, the only logical and reasonable answer is that Ancient Aliens provided primitive man with primitive weapons like the bow and arrow. No sense in starting us early hominids off with the Atomic Bomb.

[SunkenCiv]

...then "Oogah the Bowmaker" would be the parent of us all since he'd have owned all the women. And DNA would show it.

Never heard of the so-called Toba Bottleneck? Turns out that...

[wildbill]

Yeah, Oogah was sitting somewhere with his bow in one hand and his.... in the other.

[SunkenCiv]

The bowflex and the arrow shirt are also of prehistoric origin.

[PeterPrinciple]

As I recall, the Mongols pioneered a laminated bow, the outer surface of which was sinew, and the inner layer horn. When the bow was drawn, the sinew would stretch and the horn would compress. Upon release, both materials would snap back to their original shapes, thus enhancing the acceleration of the arrow.

---

I have a Mongol bow like that. And they are still made exactly like that.

Here's the story. I have always had an interest in archery and while I was there I learned the former local communist leader made bows so I arranged to meet him. After several customary servings of vodka, I began to think I needed one. So $200 later I am packing it for the trip home.

I still have it, know of anyone looking for one?