Tracking the Arrow Of Time: 70,000 Years Of Toxophily
p>Sometime in deep-history the much-restricted punch and thump was weaponized and replaced with the club. Eventually, the requirement to injure life outside one’s reach birthed the throwing club and the spear, but eventually, toxophilites (bowmen) began using elastic materials to extend their aggression and the first archery weapons were created in the form of the bow and arrow.
Odysseus strings his bow and kills the suitors of Penelope by Thomas Degeorge (1812) Musée d'Art Roger Quilliot (VladoubidoOo/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
In history, when something was as popular as archery it became entrapped in myths, folklore and ballads, such as for example Robin Hood, to name perhaps the most famous. References to archery appear in global mythology, for example in Greek mythology, in the 21 book of the Odyssey Odysseus was eminently skilled in the ‘art of archery’ and both Eros and Cupid, the Greek and Roman gods of love, respectively, were master archers as was the god Apollo.
