Ill start by saying its my personal belief the bow and arrow came across from Beringia with the first peoples (dogs too). The climate in the pleistocene was not conducive to trees that make good bow wood, therefore its my belief they were made from fir/pine and tipped only with wood, antler or bone points (antler harpoons I think most likely). These bows would have had a very low draw weight and wouldn't last very long in use. They would be far superior to atlatl and dart in getting smaller fish and small game. As we see the start of the big game hunters i.e clovis/folsom the bow was relegated to woman and children (the folks who put dinner on the table most days IMHO). As we move into the Holocene we see an increase in woodworking as the climate became more suited to deciduous trees, but the cultural strings attached, pun intended, would have remained, its a woman tool. We see all the technology needed to produce a bow demonstrated in other items and a dart point and foreshaft can absolutely be put on the end of an arrow shaft and shot just fine, low poundage bow does not care. We see some mini dart points here and there starting just after clovis with fresh made midland points only smaller with impact damage, not too small to be dart points but very much on the small side. This has been an obsession of mine for some time, finding evidence is the hard part. We see arrow points in South America 1500 years before we see them in North America but they continued to use the atlatl for hunting anything larger then a guinea pig.
Any input thoughts or suggestion on this would be greatly appreciated
Any input thoughts or suggestion on this would be greatly appreciated
Comment