Why precolumbian crossbows didn't exist.
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 14 июл 2022
- In which I talk about why there are no precolumbian First Nations crossbows.
In short, there was no scenario in which a crossbow was significantly preferable. In most respects they are worse than a regular bow.
All technology is a solution to a problem, and in this case there was no problem to solve.
On the subject of the Inuit crossbows, the way I see it, they probably used them because there was some incentive to practice patience hunting. Less prey? less cover? I don't know. I've never been north of 60 and my knowledge of the far north mostly comes from TVO documentaries.
The main advantage of crossbows over bows, beside keeping it drawn for longer, is that they are easier to use. To proficiently use a longbow (especially in a war context) you not only need skill you also need the necessary muscles, therefore it takes years to train a longbow man. On the other side you can give someone a crossbow, train him for a few weeks and he will be somewhat decent. So it makes sense that crossbows were used in places like china or medieval europe, where the scale of warfare combined with the structure of the society required a quantity of men that could be easily armed and trained. Most Hunter-Gatherer / Hunter-Farmer societies wouldn´t really profit from a broad use of crossbows, because the usage of bows is part of their lifestyle and trained archers are readily avaible.
I've seen that statement about strength training for bows many times, and I disagree.
In introducing people to archery I've found that a reasonably fit man can draw a surprisingly high poundage without prior experience. I don't think it would take all that long to get to a hundred pounds.
@@MalcolmPL a fit man can draw a suprisingly high poundage bow, but a small child who has never held a bow can pull the trigger on a crossbow
@@MalcolmPL Sure but wouldn't accuracy also be a concern? That man may be able to draw the bow but his arrow hitting its mark is another story.
@@juwebles4352if the common skill level is hunting birds to targeting vitals of big animals accuracy wouldn't be much of an issue.
@@MalcolmPL I will add in that modern-day, with all the food we want, gaining muscle mass is a bit easier than it would have been for an ordinary person in pre-industrial-revolution Europe, as protein was scarcer and more expensive.
They probably did exist in the americas but the triggers decomposed due to made of organic materials, such as simple push pin or tilt triggers seen in African and Vietnam cultures. If these were made they were likely traps or toys because they had no reasonf to use the crossbow over the bow. Poison is required for the short powerstroke compact crossbows to be lethal meanwhile large crossbows are no use for natives in north/South America when bows do the job just as well
Meanwhile Vietnam and African crossbows were preserved because they passed down the tradition and they still making them today
Don’t forget ancient crossbows from China and Greece are preserve through writings or burial tombs designed to be preserved, or made of bronze which decompose less than wood
Now that you mention poison crossbow bolts. I’ve been doing some research and found very little information about crossbows specifically made for the use of poisoned bolts. In Sir Ralph Payne Gallway’s “book of the crossbow” he mentions the use of a lightweight steel hunting crossbow for poison bolts by the Spaniards, and also that African crossbow you talked about in one of your videos a few months ago. There’s also the chu ko nu Chinese repeating crossbow which is interesting because it was not used for hunting and the bolts were not always poisoned.
@@alternator7893 that book is a European centric book that shows mostly European crossbows. Most poisom crossbows are below the equator and scarcely documented by English-language sources
I might also add that they lower the skill barrier for effective fighting. Crossbows lend themselves more to a sort of proto-industrial model of mass, standardized warfare.
They work well if you have huge workshops producing standardized bolts and if you’re conscripting peasants into an army.
In North America, the people fighting were almost always willing volunteers or else people forced to defend themselves. These people could make their own weapons or knew the people making their weapons, and were practicing with bows their whole lives. No need to lower the skill requirements or industrialize weapon production.
It’s not that nobody ever thought of a crossbow, it’s that if they did, their next thought would be “I guess that wouldn’t be very useful.”
Long bow crossbows are certainly clumsy, but european medieval crossbow developed from a self shortbow (which was much more common than people think, preserved pieces are about 4 feet on average and predate the military use of the longbow) as a possible solution to problems of spine/arrow deflection, floating anchor, wrist slap and low draw weight and several others but these are the most important. The main result was much greater accuracy, that is really the crossbow's forte, not range or power. If it didn't serve a purpose it would've been abandoned. Instead, it gained prominence despite its disadvantages. Maybe some shortbow people rather preferred their bows on a stick instead of making it longer to improve the thing. Or they didn't like making long arrows. Personally, I enjoy shooting bows more, but if I were to go hunting squirrels I'd probably take the crossbow. Also, fortifications.
The longbow was always used in war. Just not in every region of europe.
@@jarlnils435 That kind of depends on what exactly you mean when you say "longbow". In this context I assume he's talking about English longbows, which they started using in the medieval period.
I agree with you,i made some primitive and medieval type crossbows with wood limbs and they aren't efficient. Its easier to aim and there is less movement while hunting but native Americans were master hunters anyways with a bow in the stone age days.
Thank you I really appreciate the clarity in which you deliver the information and your message
I could listen to you for hours and I too have missed your content
Lot of interesting comments on this, but a couple of other points leap to mind:
Crossbows have a few advantages over bows and several disadvantages:
1) Shorter range per pound but greater penetration (so, good for dealing with armor)
2) Can hold drawn for a long time more easily
3) Easier to fire prone, harder to use with vertical concealment (i.e., a tree)
4) Slower reload time (so more practical in densely packed formations against densely packed formations)
5) More complicated infrastructure to make
6) While not impossible to use on horseback or in ambush warfare, a hell of a lot harder to use than a bow
Crossbows make sense when you are fielding large, packed armies with heavier armor in relatively open areas, none of which are terribly relevant in the context of North American warfare at the time in question (though you could make a case could have been relevant in the Mesoamerican context, now that I think of it...)
There's a really interesting book on Eastern Woodland warfare, "The Cutting-Off Way" that posits the big technological issue between the European colonizers was less firearms, especially personal firearms and metal, and rather more practice at siegecraft from the constant large scale warefare of the preceding centuries in Europe, which allowed Europeans to hem in and cordon off Amerindian populations.
Your channel is amazing. The content is wonderful in itself, but the commentary just makes it 🤌
Love your videos! Thanks for making one
Excellent analysis.
That makes sense bro!
Also things with hinges break so making them foldable doesn't work well.
Can you make a video talking about or building a spear
No, I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said.
Great video! I have missed your excellent content, Malcolm.
🤔interesting👍🏼
Great video as always. How is summer up their this time of year?
Not the hottest summer, 25-33C.
Not enough rain though. They’re on the edge of declaring it a drought. Crops are struggling, grass is dying, ponds are drying up.
@@MalcolmPL sorry to hear that, their was little rain out west as well. Hope it changes soon.
In an older video you showed a fellow's work on tlingit armour. One of the them was carrying a magnificent long copper dagger. I have seen similar copper daggers used by the Innuit. They are fascinating and resemble early bronze age rapier designs in mid bronze age Europe.
Would you consider a video on these copper daggers in the future? Particularly that impressive Tlingit one.
Maybe if I find an appropriate piece of material for a good reproduction.
Good video bro
Thank you cousin.
2:34 WTF i had no idea you can make bow out of snakes
I think it was referring to how some native hows back the bow with a layer of animal skin. This is beneficial in maintaining the bow's structure I believe, as well as increasing draw strength and speed in the limbs due to the added skin essentially acting as a spring(?) Haven't looked into bows in a while, so take this with a grain of salt.
The skin prevents the outer edge from tearing, as skin is much stretchier than wood. It also increases tension without increasing the mass too much.
In the case of the snakeskin, the scales are also better at resisting wear and moisture than just regular sinew.
@@MalcolmPL oh, soo its just a socks on the bow not the bow itself :/
Like socks but glued on.
@@MalcolmPL can you make episode about the Leather flails
Good vid. Do you think it was the lack of cover in the north that lead the Inuit to adopt the "sit and wait" tactic while their southern neighbours didn't need to?
Less cover, less prey, it could be any number of things.
Short answer is they didn't need to invent it. Just like how the Australian aborigines never needed to invent the bow.
The ability to mass produce bronze trigger mechanisms is a big part of why the crossbow became so big in China. Without that the crossbow has a much more limited use
Bronze age american empires almost always favored slings and other high mass/energy dumping weaponry like the atlatl.
Naaar many crossbows made in china even today have no trigger.. Release with the thumb.. Or a horn trigger..like dai, meo ect crossbows You dont need a metal trigger
@@manchagojohnsonmanchago6367Do you know where I can find more images of the crossbows without triggers, I've only found almost no images of triggerless crossbows and a ton of images of ones with wooden bar side mounted and horn triggers so far
@@congaudeant hmm.. In china & vietnam ect they are very common among the meo collection of ethnic groups and you can also see them with dai/thai and li anong many others. Some use a peg. But some you just use your thumb to push the string. They have the arrow stood off from the string by afew centimeter to help keep it accurate with such a relase.. Youll sekinds make sinple ones from bamboo with no trigger too
@@congaudeant yeah ill try to find one. I have a bamboo one with no trigger. Ive only seen them very low power thpugh. Things children shot rats with. But they exsist
Another great video man!!! Is there any evidence of First Nations using early guns with bayonets? Been thinking about those hybrid axe guns or poke arm guns from medieval Europe and was wondering if anything like that happened at all over here?
I can’t say anything definitive, but I haven’t heard of anything like that. Most firearms in the period were purpose built trade guns, which wouldn’t have an attachment point for a bayonet.
It’s possible some people used bayonets on looted army guns, but I haven’t heard of it.
I just found a picture from the seven years war of a warrior with a bayonet. So apparently it was done.
@@MalcolmPL that’s pretty cool!!! I love learning about the mixing of ideas that occurred during these times
It does remind me of Chinese crossbows.
Question, did Indigenous Americans use composite bows?
Depends on what you mean by that, I haven’t seen any that used horn or laminated wood, but the plains people used ones with sinew and rawhide. And the Inuit used cable backing.
@@MalcolmPL I was under the impression that plains people had sinew backed buffalo horn bows. Perhaps this is a myth?
I haven't seen or heard of any, but I only have a superficial knowledge of the region. I could easily be wrong.
@@MalcolmPL Would you consider cable-backed bows as being composite in the sense that it's comprised of separate pieces of drift wood bound with sinews and a cord along the back? I'm unsure if glue was involved.
I would, but I don’t know if I am correct in my definition.
Just a correction, wooden crossbows can be quite powerful this is a good example: ruclips.net/video/gaGCrv4LyUQ/видео.html
Oh, neat, I’ve never seen one that powerful, strongest I’ve seen was about 220.
However, my point mostly still stands. Because of the draw length the one there shoots like a longbow between 96 and 64.
I'm interested to see more of that crossbow
I'm guessing another factor is domestic animals. Old World populations had horses, donkeys, camels, etc. that can help move the extra weight of the crossbows. They also had easy access to animals with horns like cows and goats, and horn is useful for crossbows even if metallurgy is primitive.
One thing to add is that historical composite bows are climate dependent. Hide glue doesn't like humid regions.
Great video! I think it's worth pointing out that while the idea of the crossbow is stupid simple, the first practical crossbow designs were developed by advanced iron age civilizations in China and Greece. However, once there were working examples of crossbows, a large number of primitive, pre-literate, and sometimes pre-metal cultures copied the idea and reverse-engineered their own "bush" crossbows. Considering that by the 5th century AD, variants of primitive crossbows(often not requiring metal components) were found in places like Central Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Africa, all of these being pre-literate tribal regions at the time. So it strikes me that perhaps Native Americans tribal nations would have reverse engineered the crossbow if they encountered it more often than firearms and somehow survived as independent nations for longer than they did in reality.
The only real reason the Europeans and Chinese used crossbows so much was because they weren't using bows all the time in their daily lives and didn't have time to pick up the skill. England was able to field so many longbowmen by requiring men to practice with them in their spare time. For the First Nations, who *did* use bows all the time in their daily lives, that wasn't an issue. Crossbows just wouldn't have made sense for them.
People who ask this kind of question need to realise that technology isn't linear. Technology exists to solve a problem. If a problem doesn't exist, or if people have other ways of dealing with it that suit their needs well enough, they're not going to see the benefit of innovation in that situation.
Crossbows were still very popular weapons of war in England; ease of use isn't their only advantage. They're more accurate and can be held spanned for a while, making them ideal for cover-based fighting in sieges and even naval battles.
I found a bow, they grew the wood into circles. Masters of nature! They were nature. I finally got to take a video of it today.
The ancient people would’ve carved faces to give the spirits the opportunity to give the weapon more power. Ask me how I know…
The main role i can think of is as a trap and there's plenty of other traps that are less work.
Yeah, making a loop snare from milkweed only takes about half an hour.
I actually found a bow that was preserved in clay. Not trying to hijack the channel but if you’re super interested check it out.
Makes an awful lot of sense really : crossbows where invented in china where loads of pesants had to be levied and with minimal training learn how to throw projectiles ...
Given the technology available to china at the time crossbows where a great solution ...
The avarage first nation man knew how to use a bow for hunting , ig kinda like how we are familiar with riding a bike ,
And they didn't have wars on the scale china had or with the same frequency ...
So really a crossbow would have been an akward tool for them with little practical use ...
And we see it even today :
Freedom fighters in india use bows to fight not crossbows ,
Simply because they are easier to make and have less components that can fail ...
Subscribe from me för your Great knowledge. BTW r u Polish? If not what means PL?
Parti d'labeur.
@@MalcolmPL Love u bro