Beyond “Better Tech”: Bows in North America
From The Observatory
Date
January 16, 2026
Location
University of Michigan School of Education
Area
Add to a calendar
Beyond “better tech”: Why the bow spread (or didn’t) in North America
Dr. Raven Garvey - Associate Professor of Anthropology, and Associate Curator at UMMAA
The adoption and spread of bow and arrow technology in North America reflects a complex interplay of ecological and social factors: While environmental variables such as wood availability and prey diversity / behavior were surely important, demographic and cultural variables were equally or more influential. Parsing the relative effects of these factors and understanding interactions among them requires a clear view of the timing and nature of bow use across North America’s diverse geography. This talk explores adoption of the bow in North America from two perspectives.
Agenda
"This talk explores adoption of the bow in North America from two perspectives. First, I’ll present evidence for the bow’s earliest appearance, use in conjunction with other projectile technologies, and effects on economic and other systems in several North American ecoregions. Second, I'll present a novel model of technological investment (uptake) that considers effects of people’s social roles: Whether people are craft specialists or do-it-yourselfer tool producers–users affects rates of adoption. This hypothesis has global-scale implications, which I’ll demonstrate through regional case studies. I’ll argue that adoption depended not just on the bow's inherent utility but also on how the technology was produced, shared, used, and valued in different economic systems."
Key Speaker: Raven Garvey
Participants
University of Michigan Department of Archaeology
Host, Organizer | Homepage
Our faculty, staff, and students are conducting fieldwork and collections-based research across the globe, spanning periods from half a million years ago to the present. The University of Michigan houses outstanding archaeological collections and offers a range of undergraduate and graduate degrees and programs in archaeology and related disciplines. This site provides an overview of our research, educational programs, collections, and resources that are of interest to students, scholars, teachers, and the general public.
