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
Speculation:
Hey, you seen that nasty tribe that keep attacking everywhere with their weapon, what’s that?
Let’s capture one and steal their ideas.
(Just like how every nomad spread things. We copy what we saw instead of acknowledging who come up with the tool first.)
(So where did the bow and arrow come from? End of my speculation)
Well the running joke I heard was I wanna kill that guy with a stick but is like waaay over there. Hmmm
Eventually guy tried throwing the stick it worked but had difficulty. Eventually they tried using a stick to fling the stick, and then maybe I forgot to put something else in the middle invented a bow, a stick with rope, the rope holds the pointy stick, the curved stick bends and flung the pointy stick, eventually adding feathers for drag and a pointy rock for more painful dmg and then there.
And then long bow, and then balista and then cannons and eventually we got nukes
I think of it a bit like this. If you want to propel an object of some sort at a target, but you don’t have access to mechanical tools, engineering, explosives or some other form of craftsmanship you are left with very few options.
So on one hand yes every culture developed bows, but then also many other novel solutions to this issue. Slings are fairly ubiquitous but then also novel solutions. Blow darts, boomerangs, bolas (boli?), throwing sticks of various types and a whole variety of other interesting solutions.
Latest Answers