Long, heavy hunting arrows?

[Jodocus]

I am about to make a batch of arrows the european mesolithic style. Not replicas or anything of scientific ambition, more of apocalyptoish science fiction.  They will be display arrows, but I want them to be fully functional down to spine and mass.

Studying the actual finds from bogs, where some arrow shafts lasted over the millenia, I find typical lenghts of 40 to 44 inches.

I then tested shafts of that lenght for spine and get to numbers around 80 to 90 for a 60#@28" draw and quite a wide bow. These shoot straight. They weigh around 1000 grains.

I have a pair of historical Papua arrows that pretty much match these numbers, you can see them here on my blog (it's german, but few words anyway). https://zweiraben.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/alter-papua-bogen/  I looked at other primitive arrows, especially oceanic and amazonic arrows often are in this range. Often These are not fletched, but mesolithic arrows seem to show "traces of bindig for a fletching"

This is quite far from the arrows I use. When I shoot them, they are slower than my usual 29" 600 grains arrows. But accurate nevertheless.
Since I don't hunt (no legal bowhunting here), I thought I'd ask you guy what you think about it.

So: any experiences, knowledge about that kind of arrow, any reasons pro or con?

[willie]

a couple of thing come to mind when thinking about how long ancient hunters may have made their arrows.

in no particular order...

1. a longer arrow has more chances to be repaired if the tip portion is broken in use

2. I would imagine that the primitive hunter found better odds of making a kill at very short range, where the trajectory is not so much of a concern

3. heavy arrows penetrate better, and are less prone to being damaged by rough handling 

[crooketarrow]

  Cool those your bows.

[Jodocus]

thanks crooketarrow, I post them all on here, too.

willie, better penentration is true. The points of multiple such arrows have been found in the skeleton of an aurochs, It certainly takes heavy arrows for this kind of game.
If it were for the sturdyness, however, short, heavy arrows would be better.
The repair thing is also true, there's one preserved splice that looks better than what I can do with steel tools.

[willie]

Jodcus

If it were for the sturdyness, however, short, heavy arrows would be better

of course, if your only concern was to make a sturdy arrow, the shorter would be the better, (but it would have to be thinner also to match spine.)

on a slight different topic
have you ever come across culture where a variety of arrows were used with the same bow? now a days we tend to think of a matched set of arrows for a singular purpose. Would'nt it be probable that the primitive archer who depended on a bow for many different purposes, would have a variety of arrows in his quiver?

willie

[Jodocus]

you're right!

Look at this one, that must about be the lenght:
http://main-designyoutrust.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/732.jpg

and this is the variety of points in an article on new Guinea from the 50s:

[willie]

thats pretty long, and it must be veryyyy heavy. I have seen photos like this before,
usually tropical and maybe south american, and it often seems to be shooting into trees and water. maybe its about the recovery of the arrow/fish/ bird
a flu flu or  bow-fishing heavy arrow alternative?

btw..
do you think the proficient primitive with one bow and many different arrows used varying draw length to suit the arrow/shot?

[Jodocus]

Funny you mention that with recovery. In the article I found that picture in, the author states that the arrows are long so they can better be found in the brush. I thought that was nonsense, but hearing it from a second source, maybe there's something about it. I should take a long test arrow to the woods and see if ist true.

do you think the proficient primitive with one bow and many different arrows used varying draw length to suit the arrow/shot?

The little one in the pic has a picture perfect draw...
Quickly going through some pictures seems to indicate they use several stances at least for shooting up / from cover/ from a boat.

[kleinpm]

I didn't see it specifically mentioned but long arrows are much more spine tolerant. I figured that our when I was a kid long before I knew what spine was so I am sure they knew about it also.

Patrick