Archery is an extremely old activity that can be traced back to Paleolithic times some 2.6 million years ago. This was the time when peoples (who would eventually boil down to today’s human race) began to use simple stone tools. Some of the earliest tools were stone or flint being knapped into points for fixing to the shaft of wooden spears.
Hunting
Hunting animals was a main source of food for these people but, they were on foot and many of the animals were large, fast running and dangerous. Getting close enough to such animals to stick a spear into them with sufficient force to seriously maim or kill was both difficult and dangerous to the spearman.
The ever inventive hominid mind of this time came up with something that we now call a spear thrower which was a device that utilized leverage to considerably increase the force and the distance that a spear could be thrown. These considerably improved the hunter’s chances of a kill without being killed himself and, in various forms, spear-throwers are still in use to this day amongst traditional societies.
Good as spear-throwers were, they were still not quite good enough and those inventive minds next came up with the principle of the bow to give them more power and distance plus improved accuracy when hunting. Bows were appearing independently amongst groups separated by vast distances. Once someone had invented the first one, the knowledge would be shared and other group members would be shown how to use the new bows. I guess that these were the first examples of Archery Lessons (even though those words had not been coined at the time).
Warfare
As these primitive tribes evolved and homo-sapiens came into pre-eminence, we invented other things like bigger tribes, towns, cities and then countries and, along with this came territorial ambitions that led to the invention of warfare. The bow and arrow had been long known as an efficient killer of game and it proved to be no less so when it came to killing fellow humans.
Bow designs and constructions varied considerably but all the historical empires included a high percentage of archers in their armies. Since most armies were conscripted, the nobles insisted that as many of their subjects as possible receive at least rudimentary Archery Lessons so as to be ready when called to go to war. From around 1600 AD, the use of bows and arrows in warfare declined because of the wide spread introduction of firearms.
However,archery continued as a competitive sporting activity that is still popular to this day. Just as in days of yore, those wishing to excel in archery would be well advised to take Archery Lessons. Maybe you cannot learn a perfect aiming eye but there are definitely procedures to learn that will help you hit the target better.
Archery PRO is an organization that operates nationwide to provide Archery Lessons for beginners through to fairly competent archers.
