Archery

Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows at a target. The term comes from the Latin *arcus*, meaning bow. Historically, archery was used for hunting and combat, but today it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity. Someone who practices archery is called an archer, bowman, or toxophilite.

The oldest known evidence of arrows, without surviving bows, comes from South African sites like Sibudu Cave, where bone and stone arrowheads dating back roughly 72,000 to 60,000 years have been found. The earliest complete bows and arrows come from Northern Europe, including finds at Mannheim-Vogelstang in modern-day Germany, dated to 17,500–18,000 years ago, and at Stellmoor, dated to 11,000 years ago. Azilian points from Grotte du Bichon, Switzerland, found alongside a bear and a hunter with flint fragments in the bear’s vertebra, suggest arrow use around 13,500 years ago. Other European evidence from Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley near Hamburg, Germany, dates to the late Paleolithic, about 10,000–9000 BC; those arrows were made of pine with a main shaft and a 15–20 cm fore shaft tipped with flint. No definite earlier bows exist, as earlier pointed shafts may have been launched by spear-throwers. The oldest known bows come from the Holmegård swamp in Denmark. At Nataruk in Turkana County, Kenya, obsidian bladelets embedded in a skull and thoracic cavity of another skeleton suggest stone-tipped arrows were used as weapons about 10,000 years ago. Bows eventually replaced spear-throwers as the main way to launch shafted projectiles on every continent except Australasia, though spear-throwers persisted alongside bows in parts of the Americas, including Mexico and among the Inuit.

Bows and arrows were present in Egyptian and Nubian culture from their predynastic and Pre-Kerma origins. In the Levant, artifacts that may be arrow-shaft straighteners date from the Natufian culture (c. 10,800–8,300 BC) onward. Classical civilizations such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, Persians, Parthians, Romans, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese fielded large numbers of archers in their armies. The Akkadians were the first to use composite bows in war, according to the victory stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad. Egyptians called Nubia "Ta-Seti," or "The Land of the Bow," because the Nubians were expert archers, and by the 16th century BC, Egyptians used composite bows in warfare. Bronze Age Aegean cultures deployed state-owned specialized bow makers for warfare and hunting from the 15th century BC. The Welsh longbow proved its worth in Continental warfare at the Battle of Crécy. In the Americas, archery was widespread at European contact.

Archery was highly developed in Asia. The composite bow was likely invented in central Asia, with the Scythians as probable inventors. The Sanskrit term for archery, *dhanurvidya*, came to refer to martial arts in general. In East Asia, Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, was known for its regiments of exceptionally skilled archers.

The medieval shortbow was technically identical to classical era bows, with a range of about 91 m. It was the primary ranged weapon on battlefields through the early medieval period. Around the tenth century, the crossbow was introduced in Europe. Crossbows generally had longer range, greater accuracy, and more penetration than the shortbow, but a much slower rate of fire. Crossbows were used in the early Crusades, with models having a range of 274 m and able to penetrate armor or kill a horse. During the late medieval period, the English army famously relied on massed archers armed with the longbow, while the French army relied more on the crossbow. Archers were more likely to be peasants or yeomen than men-at-arms. The longbow had a range of up to 270 m, but its lack of accuracy at long ranges made it a mass weapon rather than an individual one. Significant victories attributable to the longbow, such as the Battle of Crécy and the Battle of Agincourt, made the English longbow part of military lore.

The Scythians became extremely adept at archery on horseback and may have invented the first true composite bow, which they spread across Europe and Asia. Lightly armored but highly mobile archers were excellently suited to warfare in the Central Asian steppes and formed a large part of armies that repeatedly conquered large areas of Eurasia. Shorter bows are more suited to use on horseback, and the composite bow enabled mounted archers to use powerful weapons. Seljuk Turks used mounted archers against the European First Crusade, especially at the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097. One of their tactics was to shoot at enemy infantry and use superior mobility to prevent the enemy from closing. Empires across Eurasia often associated their "barbarian" counterparts with the bow and arrow, to the point where powerful states like the Han dynasty referred to their neighbors, the Xiong-nu, as "Those Who Draw the Bow." Xiong-nu mounted bowmen made them more than a match for the Han military. It is possible that "barbarian" peoples were responsible for introducing archery or certain types of bows to their "civilized" counterparts. Native Americans developed a culture of horseback archery after the introduction of the horse.