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Archery: Big Game Hunting In North America

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When you hear the word archery, what do you think of? Archery can mean a wide range of things to different people. All the way from what was used in the middle ages to conquer kingdoms to what they used last weekend to harvest an animal. In this essay I am going to elucidate about how archery has evolved over the years. The bow and arrow have been around in history longer than most people realize. Ever since around 64,000 years ago archery equipment has evolved a considerable amount. On the other hand, some would debate that the bow and arrow basics have not changed since 64,000 years ago. So, have we truly evolved the bow and arrow or have we simply improved the materials we use to construct them. This is a question I hope you will be able …show more content…

Well I believe, that to truly understand the evolution of something you should first know where and/or what it originated from. The bow and arrow did not originate from North American it merely was improved. But, even though it was improved in North America, it did not become present in North American for a number of years. “…as soon as North American people got horses from the Spanish invaders in the 1500s, they began to invent shorter composite bows (Bow and Arrow 2016)”. So, until around the 1500’s North America was way behind the rest of the world in archery equipment. But, of course similar to everything in North America the technology of the bow and arrow evolved rapidly. “Up to about 1930 the history of Western archery as a sport was the history of the longbow. This bow had disadvantages, however. It was subject to differing conditions of temperature and humidity, it needed to be left unstrung when not in use, and using it was an art (Archery 2016)”. The longbow was such a great piece of archery nobody tried to change it until the mid 20th century in North America. Around this time technology and science was make great advancements. So, the longbow got replaced by a “…composite design made of laminated wood, plastic, and fiberglass that was little affected by changes of temperature and humidity (Archery 2016)”. From what was said earlier composite bows were around on the other side of the world since 2500 BC. But, North America is just now in the 20th century making them. This may seem like North America was slacking in the archery industry. However, with North America making them out of fiber glass and other materials these bow was stronger and more advanced than previous bows. “The modern composite bow shoots farther than the longbow: a maximum distance of more than 775 meters (850 yards) has been obtained with it, compared to about 275 meters

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