No One Leaves Africa Without His Bow

[Jdailey1991]

One of the most enduring and effective weapons of human history is the bow and arrow. The oldest archaeological evidence of this weapon is 10,000 years ago.

That's a pretty young date compared to Out of Africa, which varies between 125,000 and 50,000 years ago. By then, the only projectile weapon they had was the spear. Effective, maybe, but not without its problems. For one thing, you're throwing it with one arm, which does not provide stability compared to holding the bow on one hand and pulling the arrow on the other, which provides better control.

So if humans invented the bow and the arrow BEFORE leaving Africa, would the course of human culture be affected? If so, how?

 

[CupofJoe]

They almost certainly did have the bow far earlier that evidence has been found for them. The trouble is that early bows were probably bent sticks with gut strings and wooden arrows [maybe fletched with feathers]. After only a few years, these would rot away to leave nothing recognisable. [Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - as I was told once long ago.]
That said there are Atlatl and Spears, as well as throwing sticks like the Boomerang that do much the same thing as a bow and arrow. Accuracy with these things are still good [ At a local event I saw someone put out a candle at about 50 yards with an admittedly new high-tech boomerang ].
You would hunt differently with a bow as opposed to a Spear and Atlatl or a throwing stick but you could still hunt.

 

[TheCatholicCrow]

[Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

This sounds like an Archaeology saying ... I love it!

I second this opinion- for all we know, they did have them (or something similar albeit likely more primitive).

If it did have any effect, whichever hominid species discovered it would likely have dominated and slaughtered the others. On the flip side, it might have helped Homo Floresienses the "hobbits" to preserve their species.

It's hard to say because the question is not how their lives would have been affected by weapons but by a particular weapon.
You'll notice, much of Africa lacks the resources (namely wood) which probably led to the use of arrows. It's one thing to sharpen a branch into a spear and another to have a full supply of arrows on hand. It's possible that it was simply a matter of resources which would at very least explain why we haven't found them prior to the 50k mark, otherwise the suggestion that our timeline is incomplete is also highly plausible. We've only recently found Ardipithicus Ramadis and not too long ago we would have laughed at the idea that Homo Sapiens interbred with Neanderthals ... really, who knows? It's impossible to definitively say either way.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

The atlatl is impressive, played with one once and developed accuracy and power pretty danged fast. Also, do not forget the sling... higher learning curve but it's been around longer than we have evidence, also. And it's a wicked weapon with amazing ranges for warfare.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

The atlatl is impressive, played with one once and developed accuracy and power pretty danged fast. Also, do not forget the sling... higher learning curve but it's been around longer than we have evidence, also. And it's a wicked weapon with amazing ranges for warfare.

Slings are way underrepresented in fiction.