[RascalPuff]

Nomads, Civilization & War, copyright 1996 by K. B. Robertson.
With acknowledgement, may be produced for educational and non commercial purposes.

Excerpts follow

The History Of Killing At A Distance:
For Foodgathering & Warfare The Arrow Of Time, Revisited.

The arrow was the preclusive inspiration for the bow, insofar as its identity as a propelled-missle emerges from its interestingly shrinking physical evolution (of 'the extension of self') - from the club: to a staff or lever: to a spear: to a more stream-lined throwing-lance propelled by the arm, then assisted by a carved stick devise (spear thrower) acting as an arm-hand extension, into the pocket of which the dull end of the spear is rested, held and thrown; imparting an even greater mechanically advantageous extensional force from the technology-enhanced aboriginal arm to the thrown-spear or lance; finally evolving to the well crafted, streamlined, one ounce 36 inch arrow propelled by a series of increasingly more powerful bow typifications, culminating in the highly crafted, 'nomadic' composite (laminated, multi-layered; self-counter-stressing) bow; equaling the strength of the European cross-bow (originated in Asia) and about three times more powerful and much smaller and more cavalry-worthy than the much later-developed, English long bow.

The bow and string-propelled arrow may be the very first machine made by humankind - a machine being man-made; having moving parts.
Note: with the evolution of the club-to-staff-to-spear-to-arrow, the ever-increasing distance between predator and prey. the hunter and the hunted, the killer and the killed.

THE COMPOSITE (recurve, laminated) BOW
By far, the most important offensive weapon developed for warfare (and food gathering) is the composite - 'recurved' ; laminated bow. Although the bow and arrow was in crude existence in several parts of EuroAsia as far back as fifty thousand years, in the ‘seIf bow' - the projectiIe-point first appearing only as a wooden point whittled sharp at the end - it evolved very slowly into what became the aerodynamically streamlined, feather fletch-stabilised, flint, obsidian and iron-tipped: most formidable light and transportable action-at-a-distance weapon known to humanity before gun-powder. That being the 'composite' (multi-material), or 're-curve', bow (earliest known appearance in what is now Iraq, in about 2500 BC); what Europeans sometimes call 'the Cupid's bow' - the most favored and feared - truly hi-tech-weapon of horsepeople cultures: for about five millennia.

From horseback the nomadic warrior is found accurately skewering geese in mid-flight and impaling enemies from 400 and more yards of distance; his weapon optionally designed to carry fire or pierce armour-plate, at about 6 - and more - rounds fired per-minute per-archer, carrying from 60 to as many as 150 bolts each. 'Thumb rings' were apparently used by all Chinese Mongols; enabling the archer to take absolute control of the all-important moment of releasing the arrow, while at the same time protecting the arrow-releasing fingers. The small devise varied in design and material but lmproved-upon what are now called ‘archer's gloves' to protect the employed fingers from repeated chafing of highly strung bowstrings, which does indeed otherwise incapacitate a busy archer in a short period of time. - K. B. Robertson
_______________________


“The oldest inscription that has survived from Mesopotamia is the Stele of the Vultures, which shows carrion birds fighting over the entrails of soldiers killed in the battle in which Eannatum of Lagash defeated the rival city state of Umma. War has been a constant companion of civilization and most of the time it has been waged with savage cruelty toward the defeated - far more remorseless and efficient cruelty than most of the world’s ‘savages’ have ever displayed. And the reason for this is contained in the way that civilization was born.

“There is practically no direct evidence regarding the political and military structure of the earliest civilizations, when various tribes in the Middle East were first learning how to grow crops and domesticate animals, and when the first villages began to grow into towns. But war must already have been changing into a disciplined business with political and economic purposes that we would understand, for as early as 7000 BC there was at least one fortified town: Jericho. The population was probably no more than two thousand, crammed into a space of about ten acres, but Jericho was surrounded by a massive wall twelve feet high and six and a half feet thick, flanked by a circular stone tower and encircled by a deep ditch. The citizens of Jericho felt they had wealth worth defending and they lived in a world where others would try to take it from them by force and could not be stopped by lesser defenses.

“It was in this earliest period, and over the next four thousand years - half of the history of civlization - that armies and states must have evolved into more or less the forms in which we know them today, but we know nothing about the details of the process, for writing had not been invented. By the time written records started about five thousand years ago, the state and the army were already fully formed institutions of great antiquity. Nevertheless, it is possible to deduce how these twin institutions emerged and grew steadily in scale and power until they towered above the mortal men who supported them.

“The basis of civilization is agriculture, which transforms the land into a valuable possession requiring protection. In many parts of the ancient Middle East this protection was probably divided at first simply by transforming the tribal warriors into a loosely organized militia. This is already a momentous change. Warfare had become a purposeful activity with serious consequences for the whole community in the case of defeat and so there was every incentive to apply human ingenuity to improving the organization and tactics of the tribal militia. But in the most fertile lands of all, in the great river valleys of the Nile and Euphrates, organization was needed on a far wider scale.

“Doubtless self interest provided some degree of voluntary cooperation among the small peasant communities living side by side in the river valleys, but it is equally certain that a significant degree of compulsion was necessary to unite their efforts We know that the compulsion was supplied by miitary force, because that was the dominant means of enforcing obedience at the time the historical record begins. It also makes logical sense the successful users of military force would gain control over a large area, which would prosper from better coordination of its efforts in farming the flood plain. The rulers of the area would then gain further power from having control over a large area, which would prosper from better coordination of its efforts in farming the flood plain. The rulers of the area would then gain further power from having control over these increased resources, and so the system becomes self sustaining and self perpetuating. The state and the city were indeed Siamese twins.”
(‘War and civlization, which were born as Siames twins, may also end together’. - Gwynne Dyer, Ibid)