Which Came First?

[Desert Archer]

Got asked a question, or maybe I should say I heard a statement, and I don't know if it is true.

At a recent indoor shoot I was complimenting a compound shooter in the next lane (he had just shot five Xs) and he said, "The wheel was invented before the bow."

He caught me so off guard I couldn't think of anything to say. I know the famous "Ice Man" found in the Alps was around 5000 years old and he was an archer. The Egyptian empire (pyramid builders) are something like 6000 years old and they had archers. I seem to remember reading something to the effect that archery goes back at least 10,000 years. Anybody know how old the wheel is?

This is just for discussion purposes. I was going to put it in the 'Watering Hole' but it was archery related so...

Dave

[Bob Gordon]

Seems to me that the use of the wheel would depend on the culture and location. I don't remember our American Indians ever using the wheel even before horses were re-introduced to the America's and that would go back a long ways. In Europe the wheel has been around a long time and I bet our friends from over there could give us a little history lesson on what came first...warf

[Cato]

I thought I had you a response. The Bible talks about Nimrod, who was one of Noah's gradkids, or great gradkids, being known as a great hunter. That goes back about as far as anything, as it would be right after the flood.

However......it doen't say anything about a bow. I guess he could have been chasing them around with a spear.

Interesting question Dave.

[swampy]

mmmmmmmmmmm thats a good ??? since a log couldbe construed as a wheel of sorts as well as a bow LOL depending on how it was used

[Larry Hatfield]

archeological evidence puts the invention of the wheel at about 3500-5500 bc., although some think it could have been invented earlier in asia. the oldest uncovered during digs were from what was mesopotamia and are believed to be 5500 years old.
lets see now, i get the impression on some forums that bows were invented yesterday.
like bob says no record in the americas pre-european. even the inca, who built great roads with turnouts and road signs and created huge round stones they moved great distances through jungle, did not have a record of using the wheel.
they did have the bow i think.
larry

[Stick'em]

You should have said that being a dink came even before the wheel. What an axx. :goodvevil

[Viper]

DA -

Sorry, can't remember, I was very young then.

Viper out.

[Larry Hatfield]

viper, i was talking with pete day from england once and he was telling about a country inn and pub near his home.
he said at the end of the bar nearest the door was a huge glass jar containing the head of the last convict beheaded in england.
he said at the other end of the bar was a small jar that contained his head when he was much younger.
larry

[the other DWS]

Archery: A Military History by E. G Heath

" the evolution of this weapon (the bow) has been carefully traced by means of archaeological and documentary evidence....mans most persistant weapon ...spans some 50,000 years of his existance"

"At a conservative guess, based on archaeological reasoning the invention of the bow probably took place in the early part of the late Paleolithic...."

cited from page 8

This was just the first book I grabbed off my shelf. Prehistoric cave paintings world wide show multiple kinds of bows in use. Very early Egyptian art shows bows as does similar period Mesopotamian art---both from periods prior to the widespread implementation of the wheel.
Very complex structured composit bows of the type we think of as Asiatic are shown in both early Akkadian and Elamite art as well as later Assyrian wall paintings. The earlier two mentioned while not predating the earliest forms of wheel use are roughly contemporary with it. At the time of early wheel development they were already very highly developed bows.

From heath again--speaking strictly in the military context of massed and highly organized state armies rather than small scale tribal skirmishing.
"the first half of the third millennium in Mesopotamia saw the introduction of the battle chariot......although the bow, the only effective long range weapon, had been if fairly general use since the end of the fourth millennium" page 14

[Desert Archer]

So basically, what you're telling me is the compound shooter who started all this with his comment was so full of (explative deleated) that his eyes were brown! Interesting (big smiley face goes here)

Dave

PS: 50,000 years is quite a heritage for holding the power of a bent stick with your fingers. KOOL!

[Torsten]

Gents, please keep in mind that there is a big difference between the invention of the wheel and the axle.

Inca have invented the wheel (sorry no facts) a long time before the axle. It seems like they could not get the full benefit of the wheel because simply the Andean mountains did not allow common use.

So the wheelbow shooter uses the compound because of the age of his rolls. Hmmmmmm, makes sense.

[the other DWS]

You could say that he mistakenly got the wheels ahead of the shaft.
If I can remember which one of my books has the French Pyranees cave paintings of archers in it I'll scan them and post them to this thread. They are really neat.

though Heath quoted a 50K time span I kind of have some reservations about that early a date. He wrote some years back and some early archaeologists--particularly those with little hands on experience in lithic tools, figured any well worked stone blade was an "arrowhead" even if it was a 6 inch long half-pound chunk of stone. But in any case even if the bow was only invented 20K or even 10K years ago it obviously predated the invention and widespread use of the wheel by a considerable margin.

[Desert Archer]

t o DWS and others,

I had read some time ago that archery went back 10,000 years. Then a while back I remember reading something in the now defunct Instinctive Archery magazine that some archaeological dig had pushed that figure back to 20,000. I had never heard the 50,000 DWS quoted from Heath.

What ever the right number, as DWS said it certainly pre-dates the use of the wheel. Funny how people will try to justify what they like...and I was just paying him a compliment for shooting so well (LOL).

Dave

[Stagmitis]

Writing with pen and ink came before typewriters, and printers.

For some odd reason my clients still appreciate a hand wriiten note from me.