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Archeology all over the world shows that hunting tools, that is, weapons, were some of the first items that we crafted in the ancient history of mankind. Flint arrow heads and spear tips are some of the most prevailing articles found around the world.

In those ancient times, people hunted for food and fought each other. We do not know, but it probable that men and non-pregnant young women hunted animals and collected fruit, nuts and berries, while the older family members looked after the children.

It is unclear when bows were invented, but certainly more than two thousand years before Christ or four thousand years ago. Earlier than this, hunters almost certainly crept up on or ambushed their quarry and then ran after it, throwing rocks and sharp sticks or primitive spears perhaps with fire-hardened or flint tips.

It is unlikely that they often killed their quarry out-and-out, they probably wore it out until it bled to death. This method of hunting deer is still practiced by some hunters in South Africa and elsewhere.

As people lived and learned, so more sophisticated hunting articles were invented and improved on. The first such item would have been the spear and the second either the throwing arrow or the bow and arrow. It is likely that the throwing arrow came first. This weapon is still used by some traditional Aborigine hunters in Australia.

Recurve bows and longbows dating back to 2,000 BC have been found all over Europe and Asia. It seems that the longbow was more common in the north and the recurve bow in the south. Recurve bows can be shorter than longbows and still retain their power, which suits shooting from horse back or chariot.

As farming developed, so did society and more and more often, hunting wild animals was left to experts. The animals that they killed would be swapped for other items or, later, sold for money.

For most people, hunting became recreational, a sport or a game and the animals they killed in their free time they called ‘game’ and we still do today in English.

Most peoples of the world did not only develop weapons to hunt with, they also trained animals to help them. Dogs, whose forebears were wolves, were almost certainly the first whose help was sought. Some dogs were used to recover the gave after it had been shot and fallen into the bushes or the water, other dogs really did the killing.

Later still, the aristocracy would hunt with no intention of consuming the animal at all: foxes in Britain and lions in Afghanistan. This is still done today. Likewise with falcons and eagles.

Other animals were used to help chase prey. Horses equalized the speed difference between man and buffalo or deer. Elephants were used to even out the strength of tigers and offer a safer platform from which to hunt.

Nowadays, few people need to hunt to survive, but it is still a popular activity, even though for many it is a once a year event. The most famous hunting expeditions were or still are the safaris, despite the fact that now more people shoot with video cameras than with rifles.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece writes on various topics, but is presently concerned with compound hunting bows. If you would like to know more or for special offers, please go to our website at Kids Archery Set.

Archers have played a key part in warfare and hunting for thousands of years. Primitive bows were made of a single piece of wood, but composite recurve bows were being manufactured from Greece to China as far back as the second millennium BC.

Recurve bows, those with the ends facing the ‘wrong way’ when unstrung, are more powerful inch for inch in length than one piece wooden bows, which made them more suitable to confined conditions such as on horseback, in a chariot or in woodlands.

Bits of composite recurve bows, usually made from horn, have been discovered in many parts of the world. Early arrows were made from naturally straight twigs or pine needles with napped flint tips affixed. Wooden bows did not preserve so well and exemplars are rare.

It seems that archery was being developed in the early Mesolithic or late Paleolithic Age. Archery was especially well developed in some Islamic countries and in Asia, where Zen Buddhist monks used archery as part of their meditation techniques.

In the first days of archery, there were mixed sentiments about archers. In those days, people fought hand to hand with swords and spears and some of the traditionalists thought that archers were cowards because they attacked from a distance out of immediate danger. This point is made very clear in ‘The Iliad’, Homer’s account to the siege of Troy.

There are or were many kinds of bows made to match different fighting or hunting requirements. Some types of bow are the; long bow, short bow, recurve bow, composite recurve bow, reflex bow, decurve bow, deflex bow and crossbow among others.

The longbow was extremely hard to learn to use and the archer needed massive upper-body strength. The bow was often six feet long with a weighty three foot long arrow. The draw weight for maximum power was around a hundred pounds and the function of the bow on a battlefield was as long-range artillery.

The heavy arrows and fierce armour-piercing arrow head would rain down on the enemy from a hundred yards or more and pierce shields and armour as if were not being worn. Shot horizontally, the three-foot arrow could pass through a couple of people.

In fact, the longbow was so essential to the triumph of Great Britain that a law was passed making it compulsory for men over a certain age to practice with their longbows every Sunday on the village green in order to build up the necessary skills and upper-body strength in case war came.

The arrows are made to go with the different kinds of bows and the different bows and their specific arrows are suited to different kinds of hunting – whether you are hunting men or animals.

There are essentially two styles of shooting: instinctive shooting, which is very demanding as the archer does not take his eyes off the target, but does not sight down the arrow; and sight shooting where the archer makes use of sights to align the arrow with its target. The majority of people find sight shooting simpler.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on various subjects, but is currently concerned with archery recurve bows. If you would like to know more or for special deals, please go to our website at Kids Archery Set.

People have been involved with archery for a minimum of four thousand years, but very nearly certainly for a lot longer than that. Sections of composite recurve bows have been found dating back to the second millennium BC, but the parts that were found were the non-wooden, composite parts, usually of horn.

The wooden sections ordinarily rotted away thousands of years previously, but a wooden longbow from the same period was found in Somerset. Most probably, people had been using all wooden, single piece bows long before they started constructing complex composite recurve bows.

The skill of archery has always fascinated mankind and, in spite of the fact that guns have made archery obsolete, it still fascinates people today, although nowadays archery is almost reserved used for sporting purposes. It is a thriving sport and hobby and is the national sport of the Kingdom of Bhutan.

If you are interested in taking up archery, you will first have to make your mind up which kind of bow you prefer. Among other types, there are the longbow, recurve bow, reflex and decurve bows, deflex bow, pyramid bow and crossbow.

To a certain extent, the arrows are not intercompatible either. For example, a longbow can cast a three foot, heavy-gauge arrow, whereas a crossbow shoots a six inch bolt. The bows also had distinctive uses although there was a certain degree of overlap.

For example, longbows were the heavy, rapid-firing armaments of their day, being able to fling a heavy, armour-piercing arrow hundreds of yards; whereas a short recurve bow was ideal for assault from horseback. Crossbows took less ability to use but were slower than a bow.

There are different types of arrow as well. Historically, arrows were made of wood with a sharp metal tip, but these days arrows can be made of aluminium or carbon fibre. The arrowheads are distinctive for different applications as well. A simple brass tip is adequate for everyday shooting whereas a vicious, slashing broadhead is used for killing.

The majority of people who take archery seriously use carbon fibre arrows these days which is the typical arrow shaft in use at the Olympic games. The flights are usually of bird feathers and are used to stabilize the arrow in flight to minimize wobble. Plastic flights are also to be had as they are less prone to damage.

The Welsh (and English) longbow was probably the most powerful hand bow widely used. These longbows were typically six feet or more in length and made of one piece of seasoned yew (or other woods). The draw weight of a Welsh longbow at the time of Henry VIII was between 160 -180 lbf and that would cast a heavy three ounce arrow up to about 280 yards.

An explanation of the damage that one of these arrows could inflict was given by Gerald of Wales in the 12th century:

“… in the war against the Welsh, one of the men of arms was struck by an arrow shot at him by a Welshman. It went right through his thigh, high up, where it was protected inside and outside the leg by his iron cuirasses, and then through the skirt of his leather tunic; next it penetrated that part of the saddle which is called the alva or seat; and finally it lodged in his horse, driving so deep that it killed the animal”.

It took years of practice to draw and shoot one of these longbows bows accurately.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with archery recurve bows. If you would like to know more or for special deals, please go to our website at Kids Archery Set.