460 year old bow found in alaska

[Allyn T]

Here is the article just add back the w https://ww.outdoorlife.com/hunting/hunting-bow-artifact-alaska/

[bassman211]

Good article. Never made a bow from spruce, but I have made them from Birch. The bow is still in tact.Built broad with pin nocks. Amazing find.

[Marc St Louis]

I'm thinking this is the bow https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2022/03/09/alaska-400-year-old-hunting-bow-mystery-dnt-vpx.ktuu/video/playlists/top-news-videos/

[Allyn T]

Yes Marc that's the one! Pretty cool find

[GlisGlis]

beauty!
it's amazing that it has retained his shape after so many years in the water

[Gimlis Ghost]

Someone should alert Bow Ed that they've found the bow he lost on his first trip to Alaska.

[BowEd]

I sure wish moose lived in my area.Would'nt need to shoot as many deer.
More meat/sinew/hide and horn per critter.

[willie]

According to radiocarbon dating conducted by the NPS, the bow is estimated to be 460 years old, ranging in origin between 1506 and 1660.

I guess this presumes the bow was made and or used when the tree was grown? Wood taken from a hundred year old tree would place the time line within the Russian fur trade era when Yupik, Alutiq and Denina traded extensively and worked together harvesting sea otter. The short bow shown seems similar to those used for that purpose often constructed with sinew backing.

I sure wish moose lived in my area.Would'nt need to shoot as many deer.
More meat/sinew/hide and horn per critter.

lol, I find myself wishing the opposite as I get older. I gotta call the kids for help when I get one down, and if it should drop in the swamp, they might not answer the phone next fall.

[BowEd]

Yes that's a fact we all get older.Thing is though I still do stuff around on the farm yet that takes just as much effort as gutting/quatering/and hauling out a moose.
A short term investment of effort for a long term reward.

[WhistlingBadger]

That bow is a really cool find.  The bow itself is really interesting, and the enigma of why it was there maybe even more so.
t

[JW_Halverson]

That bow is a really cool find.  The bow itself is really interesting, and the enigma of why it was there maybe even more so.
t

I hear ya. The questions I often have with artifacts are often the ones that can never be answered short of a trip in a time machine.

[Marc St Louis]

These types of bows were generally used as set-bows and were sinew backed or with a sinew cable.  To call it a recurve shows a lack of understanding of bows.  I saw one just like it in an Ottawa museum

[Allyn T]

I was wondering why he called it a recurve at all. They should probably have an expert study that bow

[BowEd]

I agree the crew examining that bow should understand bows quite a bit better.

[wstanley]

Marc St. Louis, what are "set bows?" Thanks