Arrow Technology

[Juvencio Parise]

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Consensus in archaeology has posited that mechanically propelled weapons, such as bow-and-arrow or spear-thrower-and-dart combinations, appeared abruptly in the Eurasian record with the arrival of anatomically and behaviorally modern humans and the Upper Paleolithic (UP) after 45,000 to 42,000 years (ka) ago, while evidence for weapon use during the preceding Middle Paleolithic (MP) in Eurasia remains sparse. The ballistic features of MP points suggest that they were used on hand-cast spears, whereas UP lithic weapons are focused on microlithic technologies commonly interpreted as mechanically propelled projectiles, a crucial innovation distinguishing UP societies from preceding ones. Here, we present the earliest evidence for mechanically propelled projectile technology in Eurasia from Layer E of Grotte Mandrin 54 ka ago in Mediterranean France, demonstrated via use-wear and impact damage analyses. These technologies, associated with the oldest modern human remains currently known from Europe, represent the technical background of these populations during their first incursion into the continent.

The development and spread of bow technology across North America has sparked considerable archaeological debate for more than 100 years. Experts have proposed various ideas about how and why bow technology spread out of Asia between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, including warfare, hunting strategies, and migratory paths.

In our paper just published in Evolutionary Anthropology, my coauthor Phil Geib and I focus on the timing of the adoption of bow technology in the northern Puebloan Southwest and its relationship to sedentism, warfare, social coercion, and social complexity. I have been interested in these issues for nearly two decades; working for the Navajo Nation Archaeology Department (NNAD) for nearly fifteen years allowed me to encounter Basketmaker-era sites dating to the critical period of transformation. My colleague Phil Geib has studied bow-and-arrow technology for more than twenty-five years, also through work with NNAD and other research institutions in Arizona and Utah.

In the relatively short span from 400 to 550, most Pueblo groups across the northern Southwest adopted bow-and-arrow technology, made a lasting commitment to corn agriculture, built the first permanent pithouse hamlets and small villages, incorporated beans into their diet, embraced production of durable ceramic containers, and adopted a much more sedentary lifestyle than their ancestors. This period, then, laid the foundation for subsequent developments in Pueblo culture for the next 1,000 years. In our article, we explore the role of the bow in these changes in the first few centuries after its adoption.

Regarding the cost of journals, publishing is expensive. Lacking wealthy benefactors to cover the costs, most journals would not survive without recouping expenses. Nevertheless, I think many scholars make an effort to share their research with a wide audience.

If the emergence of mechanically propelled weapons in prehistory is commonly perceived as one of the hallmarks of the advance of modern human populations into the European continent, the existence of archery has always been more difficult to trace. The recognition of these technologies in the European Upper Paleolithic has been hampered by ballistic overlaps between weapons projected with a thruster or a bow.

Archery technologies are essentially based on the use of perishable materials; wood, fibers, leather, resins, and sinew, which are rarely preserved in European Paleolithic sites and make archaeological recognition of these technologies difficult. It is the flint armatures that constitute the main evidence of these weapon technologies.

Based on the analysis of these stone armatures, the recognition of archery is now well documented in Africa dating back some 70,000 years. Some flint or deer antler armatures suggest the existence of archery from the early phases of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe more than 35,000 years ago, but the morphology and the hafting modes of these ancient armatures do not allow them to be linked to a distinct mode of propulsion, making the possible existence of archery during the European Paleolithic nearly invisible.

The demonstration of Paleolithic archery has been established only on the basis of the discovery of the oldest bows and arrows found in peat bogs of Northern Europe (at the Stellmoor site in Germany, for example) and dated from the 10th to 12th millennium.

The data from Mandrin cave in Mediterranean France, presented in an article published in Science Advances, profoundly enriches our knowledge of these technologies in Europe and now allows us to push back the age of archery in Europe by more than 40 millennia.

The study is based on the functional analysis of thousands of flint artifacts from the same archaeological level that revealed in February 2022 the oldest occupation of modern humans on the European continent. This very rich level, attributed to the Neronian culture, testifies to Homo sapiens occupations dating back to the 54th millennium and is interposed between numerous Neanderthal occupations occupying the cave before and after the modern human installations.

The excavation of the Neronian settlement phases has revealed no less than 1500 flint points. Their analysis shows that a significant number of them were used as armatures for arrows propelled with a bow. It is the very small size and more precisely the small width of these armatures, of which some 30% weigh hardly more than a few grams, which allows us to exclude any other mode of ballistic propulsion for these very small weapons.

If thanks to this study, archery in Europe, and more broadly throughout Eurasia, makes a remarkable leap back in time, it also sheds light on the weaponry of Neanderthal populations. The study shows that Neanderthals, contemporaries of Neronian modern humans, did not develop mechanically propelled weapons (like technologies using bows or thrusters) and continued to use their traditional weapons based on the use of massive spear-shaped points that were thrusted or thrown by hand, and thus requiring close contact with their game.

The traditions and technologies mastered by these two populations were thus profoundly distinct, illustrating a remarkable objective technological advantage to modern populations during their expansion into the European continent.

However, in their article, the authors place this debate in a much broader context in which technical choices cannot be limited solely to the cognitive capacities of differing human populations, referring us to the weight of traditions within these Neanderthal and modern human populations as well as to ethologies that may have been profoundly divergent between them.

The journal Current Biology published a study this week that looked into the art and science of making a bow. The researchers lived and worked among the Hadza people of north-central Tanzania in Africa.

When the team reviewed the answers to their questions, they found that the Hadza bowyers had only partial causal knowledge of their bow designs. Many of the design decisions they made were based more on culture than they made the bow work better.

Robert Boyd is a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and a research affiliate with the Institute of Human Origins. He also took part in the study, and he added these conclusions.

The next steps for the team are to explore the cognitive and cultural drivers in more detail. They also want to determine whether Hadza bowyers learn more from hands-on experience, active teaching or watching adults.

We always have more to learn if we dare to know.

Learn more:

Researchers take aim at the evolution of traditional technologies

The role of causal knowledge in the evolution of traditional technology

Hunter-Gatherer Culture and Storytellers

Female Hunter Remains Overturn Gender Misconceptions

Friendly People Ensured Human Survival

The bow and arrow is thought to be a unique development of our species, signalling higher-level cognitive functioning. How this technology originated and how we identify archaeological evidence for it are subjects of ongoing debate. Recent analysis of the putative bone arrow point from Sibudu Cave in South Africa, dated to 61.71.5kya, has provided important new insights. High-resolution CT scanning revealed heat and impact damage in both the Sibudu point and in experimentally produced arrow points. These features suggest that the Sibudu point was first used as an arrowhead for hunting, and afterwards was deposited in a hearth. Our results support the claim that bone weapon tips were used in South African hunting long before the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic.

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