Australia is surrounded by people with a long history of the bow (Timor Island, New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, etc.). Evidence is, however, lacking that this weapon was ever used on the Australian continent. In 1769 Captain Cook sailed from Tahiti to New Zealand and then up the East Coast of Australia. He did not see a single example of the bow-and-arrow until he reached a small island close to the northernmost tip of Australia.1 The Indigeous Australians on this island made use of outrigger canoes with sails to conduct a robust trade in the Torres Strait.2 New Guinea is only a hundred miles away from the man with the bow. The possession of a bartered bow is trivial compared to knowing how to make it.
Sometime between 50,000 and 45,000 years ago the ecosystem of Australia dramatically shifted from a nutritious tree and shrub savanna to its current desert scrub environment.3 For 45,000 years the Indigeous Australians have made use of the same trees that grow today, about 450 species.4 Information posted online by modern bowyers suggest that 12 of these trees can be made into “serviceable” bows.5 The bows of the Hadza of East Africa have a draw weight over 70 lbs. The Nez Perce bows were as powerful. Well into the 1950’s the Liangulu of Kenya used bows in excess of 100 lbs to hunt elephants (the most powerful measured was 131 lbs).6 Medieval English longbows had draw weights well over 120 lbs.7 It is not known if there is an Australian tree that can be made into bows with similar power, durability and performance. Even the Native Americans of the vast Rocky Mountain and Great Basin regions of North America had to import bow-worthy wood from great distances or else make their bows from the horns of the buffalo or wild sheep.8
Australia is a very big place and none of the twelve “bow-worthy” trees are ubiquitous. Only one, the Brown Mallet, grows on the West Coast and it is found at the bottom southwest corner of the continent. Another tree, the Desert Oak, is found scattered in the central region of the outback. The remaining 10 are more or less clustered along the East Coast.
Multiple ancient routes to the then giant continent that included both Australia and New Guinea have been modeled by researchers to show where the Migrants likely arrived. All the hypothetical routes terminated somewhere in the uppermost region of the vast continental West Coast.9
Ancient sites suggest that the Migrants first settled Australia along its coasts and that it took perhaps a 1,000 years (over 40 generations) to reach the bottom of the West Coast.10 As demonstrated by the Nez Perce of North America it would take a gap of only a couple generations for a tribe to lose the art of bow making. By the time the Migrants came upon the Brown Mallet, bow making was a long forgotten art.
Of immediate concern to the Migrants were some very big, very strange and very dangerous animals. There were 20 foot long carnivorous lizards, lion-like mammals with crushing jaws, 1,000 pound meat eating birds, enormous three ton wombats with clawed feet, very fast 20 foot long land-dwelling crocodiles and more.11
The Migrants arguably came ashore with a second weapon. Something that was far easier and less time consuming to manufacture. Something that did not require a wood with overly critical properties. Something that would kill from a distance, albeit not from concealment.
Researchers in Germany conducted experiments on wild boar carcasses in order to observe the damage caused by thrusting spears and spearthrower darts. European spearthrower competitors were recruited for this experiment. Although the average velocity of the darts was half that of a Medieval English longbow, the energy generated at short range (10m) by the fastest dart thrower was equivalent to the longbow.12, 13 In expert hands, at short range, the spearthrower is a devastating weapon.
A 50 year old hunter was buried in southeast Australia about 42,000 years ago. The head of the radius of his right arm was extensively damaged. The elbow had lost over 60% of its normal bend. Rotation of the lower arm would have been impossible. In total, the right arm had a distinctive set of degenerative features that match and are unique to a lifetime of strenuous and repetitive use of the spearthrower.14, 15 This man did not invent the spearthrower.
Cross-section analyses of stone points recovered from a cave in Ethiopia reveal that these points were too small for spearheads and too big for arrowheads. They were, however, the correct size for spearthrower darts. These points predated the African Migration by some 5,000 to 15,000 years.16 Evidence of the bow-and-arrow uncovered in Sibudu cave in South Africa predates the Migration by 20,000 years.
The bow and spearthrower were survival’s handmaidens. They would not have been casually abandoned. They are found all over the non-African world. When the First People landed in Australia the loss of bow making would not have been catastrophic. They would still have been armed and lethal.