I think understand that the concept of a pointy thing on a long stick is universal, hence spears, but how did almost every culture, even isolated ones, think to develop bows and arrows? We see these from Europe to Africa to Asia to the Americas and even the Sentinelese, so what gives?
In: Technology
There’s basically two schools of thought you could go with here. Either inventing certain things is fairly likely, given the mechanics of the human body and the materials that people have access to. Or, inventing things is fairly unlikely, and most technological change happens because of cultural diffusion – that is, the gradual spread of one idea from people to people. Anthropologists debate which is the most likely.
But the bow and arrow is not evidence for either idea as it’s just incredibly old. The oldest likely arrowheads have been found in sites dated to 50,000 years ago. If it was invented only a few times and spread throughout human cultures, it had plenty of time to do so. But it has also had plenty of time to be invented multiple times, as clearly the necessary level of technological development to invent the bow and arrow has existed for tens of thousands of years at least all over the world.
Projectile weapons are super broken. The value of being ability to kill something without getting close to it is impossible to overstate.
For primitive man, there are 3 types tools you can make that are projectile weapons.
1. You can throw things. This works, but has short range because arms just arent that long, and there is a minimum effective projectile weight/size because of your arm isnt great at going fast
2. You can use a lever to throw things farther (atlatl, sling). These let you throw a light projectile with the same leverage as a large projectile, so it has better range
3. You can make a device that uses spring energy to throws a projectile for you. This is great because you can slowly put energy in to charge the spring, and it releases it all at once. Any way you do this can be described as a bow except for slingshots (Not invented until the 1900s) or requires compression springs (generally weaker than stretching a spring).
Of the 3, the bow is the best option available until you discover how to use chemical propellent. Its powerful, good range, and simple. Pretty much any springy branch you bend and tie a string onto will work as a bow (not a great bow, but functional). There are just so many designs of things that are all described as bows, that its inevitable any civilization will invent their own.
That and, if your civilization DOESNT invent the bow, your neighbor probably did, and you cant war against bows without your own bows.
Well, did they? Or are bows and arrows so old that they’ve had time to spread among cultures from a single origin, or a small number?
One thing that’s remarked on is that, prior to European contact, the aboriginal Australians *don’t* appear to have used bows: they hunted with atlatls and various thrown clubs. And the early population of Australia arrived *early:* if the invention of the bow was a one-time event, it would make sense that a group that lost contact with the wider world very early in prehistory might have missed out on it.
Meanwhile, who knows how long the Sentinelese have been on their islands. It’s not like anyone has done a detailed study of their physical culture and archaeology, for obvious reasons. It would not be shocking to learn that they have only lived on— been isolated on— their islands for a few centuries, and brought archery with them when they arrived.
I mean I don’t know the history but a bow seems like a pretty natural leap to me.
You start by hitting things with a stick or throwing rocks.
You realize pointy things are better. You get spear.
You’ve probably accidentally flung things and used a long stick as a lever by accident before in your adolescence without realizing that’s what you were doing. Very common.
You pick things from tree branches and they spring back. Possibly sending a nut or fruit flying.
You end up making something like an atlatl(basically a spear launcher, or more simply, long lever with flexible stick to make things go faster), or a sling.
It’s not a big leap to go from there to a bow. At least not IMO, all the mechanics are there. They’re all very common occurrences. You’re already using similar tools and working with them. Feels natural.
Wood stick bendy
String not bendy
Wood stick + string -> ptoing ptoing
Ptoing ptoing + pointy stick -> woosh stabby stab
Its a very basic and easy tool to come up with
So long pointy stick is good, throwing long pointy stick is also good.
Some places also used longer sticks to help propel slightly shorter sticks further then you can normaly throw them.
Bow and arrow is just the next advancement in “throwing” pointy sticks further technology.
There have even been ideas floating around about dropping large pointy sticks from Space on people (kinetic bombardement) as a further advancement in pointy stick good technology.
Give some kids anything slightly elastic like a rubber band or even just a ruler and they’ll come up with some kind of slingshot or catapult in few hours.
Noticing that twigs are elastic is pretty easy, you move a twig that is in your way and it ends up blasting the face of the dude behind you. From that you make a sort of catapult just for fun, like kids, then given enough time you would end up with a bow.
We, as a species, have been throwing shit at fast speed to kill something since the dawn of time
We started with rocks, used arms, this is great and all, but range and power is limited.
Then came the slings, spinning a rock built up more kinetic energy than just throwing, achieving more distance.
And then the bow came, offering a MASSIVE increase in range, so naturally, if I am using sling and sees your bows, I would copy it, this in turn lead to wide usage.
Guns, is basically removing the human component, and instead, turn to chemical reaction to provide the energy to sling rocks at very fast speed.
Railgun, is basically using magnetic force to sling rocks at super fast speed.
If you think about the fact that we are the only animal that can throw things really hard because of how our shoulder joint and muscles work, it’s not hard to realize that replacing claws and teeth with projectile weapons is such an old concept that it probably had significant influence on our evolution. From there it isn’t difficult to imagine that coming up with new ways to make projectiles go far was something most cultures did.
It is like creating fire and hunting. Every ancient culture knows this because it is one of the things that a person must resort to. It is not limited to anyone.
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