Archaeologists and Bowyers – Advice please

[Broch]

Can you explain why you say you think a fifth of it is missing. To my mind, and my limited experience, If the cross section proportions are anything to go on, the centre of the bow seems to be around the location of cross-section 5. If you balance that by making both limbs around 1190mm, then you end up with a bow nearly 2.4m Long. But it doesn't look like a broken bow either, well, it certainly doesn't look like any of the breaks I've ever had happen, (though I've never made a willow bow). 1.4m would be a far more comfortable length of bow for Hunting as well

Hi Robby - welcome to the forum

I agree, it's very perplexing and, yes, I agree 5 is the widest point so you'd think it was the centre. I have two views, either it wasn't finished - in which case it's complete in length, or it was purposefully made asymmetric - in which case I think it's a bit short (20% is just a guess). I am beginning to favour the former and certainly the bows the archy team made look symmetrical and short. The other possibility is that material shrinkage is greater at point 4 - but there's no mention of that in the research text.

 

[Broch]

Then we have the Welsh Wych elm that's put them all to shame

Enjoy it and please keep us up to date.

Yep, I have some nice Wych Elm here - both in the open and in the depth of the wood. It's tempting but I'm too fond of it to cut it to make a bow - I hope that doesn't sound daft but with Ash die-back I'm being very careful what other trees I take out. However, it has such a good reputation I will have to try it some time.

I have a basic template that I've made most of my self-bows out of but I'm going to have to thin that down quite a bit to get to the kind of weight this one looks like it achieved. I'm also quite rusty - the ash bow I put up the other day is the first one I've made for quite a long time.

Interesting you mention Elder; I've never tried that - another one to add to the list

When I work out my dimensions I'd be quite keen to get 'peer review'.

 

[Toddy]

I can't see Elder making a bow. It cracks if you look at it the wrong way. One reason folks had to 'ask' the hag if they could take flowers or fruit. An unwary clamber or pull and obviously she said, "No".

Happy to be proven wrong by someone who's done it, but

Wych elm is growing just over our side fence, and the next door neighbour wants it cut back so that it stops blocking the sunshine from her back garden. I'm not doing it, but if she does I might scran some of it

 

[Tengu]

(The worrying possibility that they knew nothing about material science is in the back of my mind)
Click to expand...
what’s worrying about it?

The idea they were a bunch of losers who didnt know how to do things properly.

But then maybe the idea that primitive folks were knowlegable and skilled is as erronous as the idea that they lived in harmony with nature?

Still, as Nessmuk reminds us, Nature is unforgiving and harsh on those who cant look after themselves. So, its reasonably safe to assume the Star Carr people did know which wood was good for what.

(Maybe it was a practice piece by a beginer who wasnt let loose with the good wood yet?)

 

[bobnewboy]

I can't see Elder making a bow. It cracks if you look at it the wrong way. One reason folks had to 'ask' the hag if they could take flowers or fruit. An unwary clamber or pull and obviously she said, "No".

Happy to be proven wrong by someone who's done it, but

Wych elm is growing just over our side fence, and the next door neighbour wants it cut back so that it stops blocking the sunshine from her back garden. I'm not doing it, but if she does I might scran some of it

Elder is known to be a very tough wood, despite the hollow pithy tube in the middle. Like all others it needs to be well seasoned, but can make great bows - note I’ve never found one stave of it gooD enough to try myself. However there are some lovely examples:

Elder bow

I’ve never got my hands on any wych elm, but most elms are pretty tough with interlocking grain.

 

[Broch]

The idea they were a bunch of losers who didnt know how to do things properly.

Highly unlikely. They were as intelligent as us, could problem solve just as well with the materials they had to hand and had tens of thousands of years of skills and methods being handed down and passed on. They would have been far more capable with their hands and using natural materials than I, or indeed any of us, will ever be. There'll be a good reason why this piece of wood is the way it is - we just don't know it.

 

[Toddy]

Elder is known to be a very tough wood, despite the hollow pithy tube in the middle. Like all others it needs to be well seasoned, but can make great bows - note I’ve never found one stave of it gooD enough to try myself. However there are some lovely examples:

Elder bow

I’ve never got my hands on any wych elm, but most elms are pretty tough with interlocking grain.

Is the fellow who made that in Australia ?

Elder is characterised by a short trunk and very few branches.

I still have my doubts. Sorry. I use elder a lot and it splits, it cracks,
"Boor tree, boor tree, crookit rung
Ever weak and never strong,
Flower and fruit baith sae sweet,
Ne'er trust a stick beneath your feet"

I know it's pithy centre makes it useful for pipes, whistles, etc., and it makes a good hearth board.
It's also a good whittling wood.

 

[SaraR]

What was the climate like at Star Carr at the time? Not just temperature but rainfall/drought conditions would greatly impact on tree growth and therefore wood quality.

 

[Toddy]

A little warmer than now, but sodden wet.
Carr is a waterlogged woodland. Kind of a liminal zone, it's part of the succession of the way land develops as marsh gets overgrown and retreats.
Trees are limited, mostly 'pioneer' species, willow, alder, birch and the like.

Marshland is rich hunting land. It has both waterfowl and the mammals like deer that come to graze on it. It's easy hunting for children too, they take eggs, frogs, elvers, small fish, etc.
It has its downsides, but it's often really close to watercourses too, and the watercourses are the roadways of the past.

 

[dwardo]

One from an age ago. My lads tiny

Elder bow

Hi all, New elder bow finished up today. This one is 60 inches long and draws about 40 at 26 inches. This took a lot of fettling to become a bow. The stave was twisted up about 160 degrees along its whole length and full of knots humps and twists. Real head scratcher.

bushcraftuk.com

 

[bobnewboy]

Is the fellow who made that in Australia ?

Elder is characterised by a short trunk and very few branches.

I still have my doubts. Sorry. I use elder a lot and it splits, it cracks,
"Boor tree, boor tree, crookit rung
Ever weak and never strong,
Flower and fruit baith sae sweet,
Ne'er trust a stick beneath your feet"

I know it's pithy centre makes it useful for pipes, whistles, etc., and it makes a good hearth board.
It's also a good whittling wood.

They guy is from Bavaria in Germany. I have seen elder taller than the usual bushes, but its usually growing in denser woodland.

 

[Toddy]

One from an age ago. My lads tiny

Elder bow

Hi all, New elder bow finished up today. This one is 60 inches long and draws about 40 at 26 inches. This took a lot of fettling to become a bow. The stave was twisted up about 160 degrees along its whole length and full of knots humps and twists. Real head scratcher.

bushcraftuk.com

Oh very nice

I take it back; how did it last ? it sounds like it was a right royal pain to make, but it turned out looking so well

 

[dwardo]

Oh very nice

I take it back; how did it last ? it sounds like it was a right royal pain to make, but it turned out looking so well

It was fine for years but eventually the limb I corrected started to take set so I retired it. There are much cleaner examples out there but they are hard to come by due to material of bow worthiness being scarce.

 

[Broch]

It was fine for years but eventually the limb I corrected started to take set so I retired it. There are much cleaner examples out there but they are hard to come by due to material of bow worthiness being scarce.

Yep, all my elder is pretty scrubby; the best shrubs are actually around the house - anything in the wood is scrappy.

 

[Broch]

I apologise if some of you think I'm labouring this but I would like to get some opinion on my thinking

I have now studied the text and drawings on the bow in detail and I've plotted the bow profile as excavated (see below). The writeup described this as 'slightly' asymmetric - I beg to differ!

Consequently, I have a hypothesis: the bow is unfinished because a mistake was made (I know, a huge leap of faith). The one end had been worked to near completion, the other end was just roughed out. The bowyer had started thinning the depth beyond the central point (around 700mm from the end) but overworked the width at point 3 - when he/she realised that (because it was flexing too much) it was discarded.

Here's the profile I'm basing that hypothesis on:



So, I am assuming that the maximum width was supposed to be around 20mm and maximum depth around 15mm. On that basis I am proposing to make a bow with the profile below. It's far from a standard bow profile of any I know (but it's based on the curve of the worked end of the bow above) so I'm going to make one first from my seasoned ash stock to see what it can do. I can then adjust the profile to improve it before trying different materials such as willow and hazel. I suspect it will need the dimensions increasing each side of centre.

 

[Tengu]

Now that hypothesis sounds good.

Does it answer the question of `why willow` though?

 

[TLM]

"
Birch
Alder
Alder Buckthorn
Aspen
Willow
Elder
"
That list does not feel like it is complete, I find it a bit hard to believe that those were the only ones. Then again not really my area of expertise.

The stiffness of a section varies with the third power of thickness and first power of width. Strength goes with the second power of thickness and first of width. What that means is that it is very non intuitive but fortunately eyeball engineering friendly. When tillering the eye is a good tool. With some reserves.

It also means that be careful with thickness, width is less important.

Good luck, I'll follow with interest.

 

[Toddy]

Remember that Star Carr was utilised c9,000bce....that's pretty much the first real growth after the ice melted here. No longer pre boreal, but not by much.
So, pioneer species. No oak, no elm, no beech, none of the other 'hardwoods'. Birds eat and poop out seeds in their droppings, so elder is a classic bird sown tree. Ivy too, but nut species don't move so quickly. Fine wind sown seeds, birch is a classic as is willow, are right there in the front ranks of tree re- establishment.
Carr land is wet land and some species just will never thrive there anyway.
It was another two and a half thousand years before Great Britain finally seperated from the continental mass, but the slow progression of re-growth over Europe was even slower out at the Western Edge.

The pollen analysis was pretty sound, that's what the folks back then had available to work with, and it fits in with what we know of the way that trees spread and how they take over marshland.

M

 

[demographic]

I'm slightly confused by the comment about the bow being thin and its size will have been due to shrinkage over the years?

I know wood shrinks as it dries but once it gets to its minimum moisture content it doesn't carry on shrinking.
It could rot.

 

[Broch]

I'm slightly confused by the commeng about the bow being thin its size wi have been due to shrinkage over the years?

I know wood shrinks as it dries but once it gets to its minimum moisture content it doesn't carry on shrinking.

The bow was compressed by layers above it; that's the main reason the archy team allowed themselves up to 30% on the depth of the bow - I will consider how much I allow after the first bow.