"Science does not know just how primitive the bow and arrow is or exactly where it was first used. Beautiful Paleolithic carvings in caves at Castellon, Spain indicate that the weapon is at least 10,000 years old."
Interesting article blam, BUT I have yet to see a definitive history of the bow in the Americas.
http://www.uiowa.edu/~osa/learn/ancient/archery.htm
That sight says 500 AD in Iowa. My point is, it was probably a European introduction, which would be a way to mark the first Atlantic transit.
http://www.tcinternet.net/users/cbailey/lithic2.html
THE BOW AND ARROW IN MINNESOTA
As Dan Higginbottom points out, the bow and arrow was probably in Minnesota by A.D. 500 and possibly earlier, just how much earlier is hard to say. In “Guide to the Identification of Certain American Indian Projectile Point Types” (1968, Oklahoma Anthropological Society Special Bulletin No. 3, Norman), Gregory Perno had the following to say about Avonlea..
“The Avonlea point is the earliest small side-notched point appearing with large scale communal bison hunting in the northern Plains from about A.D. 220 to A.D. 660 (Dates for Avonlea have probably been modified since the 1968 publication). It is found associated with the Middle Woodland Basant dart point. It is suggested that the Avonlea point may have been of Athabascan derivation and introduced into the area when some acculturation of the indigenous Middle Woodland (Besant) people with the technologically superior Athabascan invaders apparently occurred in the first two centuries A.D. . . . The time period quoted above indicates that this may have been the earliest arrowhead type used on the northern Plains. It also indicates that the bow and arrow may have been first introduced into the United States from the north, gradually being adopted sourthward and eastward by other groups in the next 500 years.