Thursday, December 28, 2023

The bow

We've looked at a few examples of south-to-north population movements up the isthmus - lately, bypassing Darien. Inasmuch as archery is a "Postclassic" introduction to the Maya and points north - that's another one [h/t saraceni].

Most of the Americas were doing fine with spearthrowers. Spears work better than arrows in taking down megafauna; and there's not much point in archery in a dense jungle where foliage gets in the way. Archery works for... well, for war. The Andes had war; the Huari and their Inca successors were (very) warlike.

Yes - the Huari were contemporaries with the postclassic Maya. But it is not like the Huari invented war. In this case the arrows point to Titicaca - which lake spawned that theocracy which the Hispanicised Inca will call "Tiahuanaco".

Tiahuanaco, perhaps, adopted the arrow for defence. They didn't like to face enemies in direct combat. But who needs to do that if their longbowmen turn your troops into pincushions from two hundred meters?

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