Technology & Medicine › Prehistory › Stone tools
Bow and arrow
c. 64,000 years ago (South Africa)· Invention or discovery· Tools, energy & materials
DebatedHistorians or scientists disagree about what happened, when, or why.
A weapon that stores muscle energy in a bent stave and releases it to shoot a light, pointed arrow.
See it on the Technology & Medicine map →How it works
Drawing a bow slowly stores energy in the bent wood; releasing the string passes it to the arrow in an instant, so it flies farther and faster than a thrown spear. The oldest likely evidence is tiny stone points with impact damage and glue residue from Sibudu Cave, South Africa, about 64,000 years ago. The oldest surviving bows, from Holmegaard in Denmark, are roughly 9,000 years old. Bows spread to most of the world, though Aboriginal Australians largely did without them.
Why it mattered
Hunters could kill from a safer distance, and the bow stayed a main weapon of war until guns displaced it, roughly between 1500 and 1700.
How we know
Microscopic study of the Sibudu points by Marlize Lombard and colleagues; similar early points in Sri Lanka and France; whole bows preserved in Danish and German bogs.
Still unknown or debated
Tiny points could also have tipped darts or spears, so the earliest dates rest on interpretation; whether bows were invented once or several times is open.
Connections (2)
▸Stone tools supplied the tiny points for the Bow and arrowMostly agreed
The connection
A bow needs light arrows with sharp tips. By about 64,000 years ago, toolmakers in southern Africa were making tiny, carefully shaped stone pieces, called microliths, and gluing them to shafts with plant gum. Shrinking stone tools to this scale made effective arrowheads possible; the bow itself was wood and sinew.
When and how
Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, about 64,000 years ago; later at many sites across Africa and Eurasia.
How sure are we?
Microscopic impact fractures and glue residues on Sibudu points match those on test arrows shot from bows.
Debates and open questions
The same points could have tipped spear-thrower darts, so whether they prove the bow existed is debated.
▸Bow and arrow was eventually replaced in war by Gunpowder weapons and cannonWell documented
The connection
The bow was the main long-range weapon for tens of thousands of years. Gunpowder weapons slowly replaced it: early guns were slow and inaccurate, but a musketeer could be trained in weeks, while a skilled archer took years. By about 1600 most European armies had dropped bows; in East Asia, archery lasted longer.
When and how
Across Eurasia from the 1300s to the 1600s; English longbowmen at Crécy in 1346 probably fought alongside a few early cannon, and England largely gave up the longbow in the 1590s.
How we know
Military records, arsenal inventories and treatises document the switch, such as England's 1595 order replacing bows with firearms in its militia.
Debates and open questions
Historians debate why guns won so early, since good archers outshot early muskets; cheaper training, armor penetration and state finances are leading explanations.