Archery from the Stone Age

to the Space Age

 

When you pick up a bow to shoot your first arrow, you are partaking in an activity dating back at least twenty thousand years. The bow and arrow are pictured in drawings that old on a cave wall in Spain's Valltorta Gorge . The bow and arrow were once critical to humankind's survival. The bow allowed humans to become proficient hunters. Prey provided various raw materials-such as hide, I bone, and sinew-for tools, shelter, and clothing and added more protein to the diet. It was safer to hunt with a bow, because prey could be shot from a distance.  Empires rose and fen through use of the bow and arrow as weapons.

The ancient Egyptians first established the bow as a primary weapon of war around 3500 B.C. They made bows almost as tall as themselves and arrowheads of flint and bronze. Around 1800 B.C. the Assyrians introduced a new bow design: a short composite bow of leather, horn, and wood with a recurved shape. It was more powerful than the longbow used by the Egyptians and could be handled easily on horseback. This gave the Assyrians an edge in battle over their Middle Eastern rivals. The Hittites also used the short recurved bow in mobile warfare by shooting from the light, fast chariots they developed around 1200 B.C. Middle Eastern superiority in archery continued for centuries as the peoples of this area successfully fought Europeans.

 For example, the Romans, although known as mighty soldiers, used an inefficient draw to the chest in shooting the bow and were outclassed as archers by the third-century Parthians of Asia. The Mongols conquered much of Europe, and the Turks threw back the Crusaders, in part because of archery equipment of the superior, recurve design and better shooting technique. In the eleventh century, the Normans developed a longbow that they used along with superior battle strategy to defeat the English at the Battle of Hastings in A.D. 1066. Thereafter, the English adopted the longbow as their major weapon and abandoned their Saxon- style bow, which was weaker and less accurate. Many ballads of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, such as the tales of Robin Hood, attest to the archery skill the English developed with the longbow.

The value of the bow as a war weapon declined swiftly after the invention of firearms in the sixteenth century .But, the fun and challenge of archery guaranteed its continued existence as a sport. King Henry VIII promoted archery as a sport in England by directing Sir Christopher Morris to establish an archery society, the Guild of St. George, in 1537. Roger Ascham published the book Toxophilus in 1545 to preserve much of the archery knowledge of the time and to maintain interest in archery among the English. Archery societies were founded throughout the 16005, and the tournaments they often formed firmly established archery as a competitive sport. The Ancient Scorton Silver Arrow Contest was first held in 1673 in Yorkshire, England, and continues to be held today.   Women joined the men in competition and were first admitted to an archery society in 1787.

On the North American continent, Indians relied on the bow and arrow for hunting.  Indian bows, however, were crude and weak; the hunter had to get close to prey to be successful. European settlers brought their well-developed knowledge of bow making from their native countries and kept interest in target archery alive.

The first archery club on this continent, the United Bowmen of Philadelphia, was established in 1828. Oddly, greater interest in archery in the United States was spurred by the Civil War. When the war ended, the victorious Union prohibited former Confederate soldiers from using firearms. Two brother veterans, Will and Maurice Thompson, learned archery with the help of Florida Indians. Maurice wrote a book, The Witchery of Archery, which helped spread interest in archery across the country .By 1879 the National Archery Association was founded and began holding national tournaments.

Enthusiasm for field archery-a target archery competition simulating hunting-and hunting itself led to establishment of the National Field Archery Association in 1939. Archery first became an official Olympic event at the Paris Olympics in 1900, an appropriate sanctioning because the mythical founder of the ancient Olympics was Hercules, an archer.

Archery continued to be shot at the 1904 St. Louis Olympiad and the 1908 Olympics in England, but did not reappear until 1920 when the Olympics were held in Belgium. Archery failed to appear in any of the

Olympic Games held over the next 52 years. The problem with early archery competition was the lack of a universal set of rules. The host country had usually held the type of archery contest most popular in that country . If archery was not popular in the host country , the event was not even held during athletic meets.

To better organize competitive archery , Polish archers worked to establish an international governing body during the 1930s. As a result the Federation Internationale de Tira L' Arc-known by its acronym, FITA-was founded. FITA set up universal rules and a type of round that was eventually adopted as the round shot by men and women in the modern Olympics. International competition so grew and gained momentum in succeeding decades that archery was readopted for the 1972 Olympic Games. Technical advances in bow and arrow design have spurred shooting accuracy and, consequently, interest in archery .

None has had more impact than H.W. Allen's invention of the compound bow in 1966 in Missouri. The compound bow makes use of eccentric ( off- center axle) pulleys or cams, mounted in the tips of the bow limbs, to reduce the holding weight of the bow for a given draw weight. These types of bows are popular in North America for target and field archery as well as hunting. While Olympic competition is limited to the traditional, recurve bow, many archers enjoy the challenge of combining mechanical advantage and personal skill with the compound bow.