<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIn the Stone Age, a time before large-scale farming, lots of the good eats around had claws, fangs, horns, an awkward home environment like the water, or a really bad attitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You had to grab any strategic advantage you could get if you were to win any encounter with them. Winning meant protein, and protein meant strength, speed, stamina \u2013 and quite possibly, even mating rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Distance from your prey is an incredibly <\/em>useful advantage in the \u2018kill, but don\u2019t get killed\u2019 stakes. It\u2019s a strategy used by amphibians with their long, insect-catching tongues. By fish that hide under sand and shoot spikes at their prey. And by lots of other predators in the animal kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Humans are many things. Patient is not one of them. Refusing to wait the millions of years it would have taken to evolve the likes of projectile bone-spurs from our wrists, we did the next best thing. We whittled branches into sharp, aerodynamic points, and then we flung them at our hoped-for dinner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spear-throwing probably got us many a meal before we first considered the idea of the bow. A piece of bendable wood that could be strung and used to fire smaller sharp projectiles further distances towards our would-be prey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At about the same time as we were working out that sharpened pieces of stone could be used as tools for a whole range of tasks, we were working out how to make ourselves a safer, longer-distance killing machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Archery in its rudimentary form was born around 20,000 years BC, according to the historians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first time those historians have records<\/em> of people getting involved in archery is some 17,000 years later in ancient Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Think about that for a second. Even in terms of recorded <\/em>archery, it\u2019s been around for 5,000 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s also been responsible for turning the tide of history many times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those first records we have of ancient Egyptian archers show that in the period between when it was probably first developed and when it was first recorded, human beings had had another important thought. The Egyptians were adept at using archery both as a source of food and as a tool of war<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tools of war rarely, if ever, go away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By the time of the Shang Dynasty \u2013 1766-1027BC \u2013China had archers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Greco-Roman period has left us lots of depictions of archers, shooting both for meat, and for war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China introduced archery into Japan in the sixth century, and on it went\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
European history was frequently determined by archery. Probably the Norman conquest of England was decided by the skill of Norman (French) archers, establishing a dynasty that went on (with wars in between) for over 400 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Native Americans had the skill of archery and were able to use it well. But in their case, the arms race went against them as they lived in the age of Europeans with guns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As archery was outstripped as a tool of war, it became more a thing of sport for some, and reverted to a tool for hunting for others. That\u2019s where it still is today \u2013 sport, fun, discipline, and a hunting technique for plenty of people around the US, and around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n