Study Tracks Arrival of Bow and Arrow in North America

TULSA, OKLAHOMA—The bow and arrow were first used in western North America some 1,400 years ago, according to a statement released by PNAS Nexus. Briggs Buchanan of the University of Tulsa and his colleagues radiocarbon dated 136 weapons made of organic materials, which were recovered from glacial ice patches, dry caves, and rock shelters where they had been preserved. The researchers determined that the bow appeared in a single place, then spread rapidly across North America through cultural transmission networks. In northern British Columbia and Alberta, people adopted the bow and arrow, but continued to use the atlatl to throw darts for more than 1,000 years. In contrast, people to the south—in California, the Southwest, and northern Mexico—rapidly replaced the use of the atlatl with the bow and arrow. Buchanan and his team members think that people living to the north may have found some advantages to throwing darts with the atlatl during the colder months or while hunting certain prey. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PNAS Nexus. To read about a rock art panel in central Montana that depicts an archer, go to "A Very Close Encounter."