The long history of hunting is important. It’s something we have done forever to feed our families, friends and ourselves.
Hunting is much more then going after an animal, it’s sharing the experiences, having an incredible encounter with an animal that you actually love and respect more than is imaginable.
Any time a piece of this history is uncovered, I’m here to listen and learn. As a hunter, I love to look for answers on why we do what we do and piece together the stories.
Alaska’s News Source has another piece to the puzzle. A 460-year old hunting bow was discovered in Lake Clark National Park by park employees.
The bow was sitting 2-feet underwater and was 54 inches long. It had been well preserved all these years from the cold conditions.
There has only been preliminary research done, more is expected to take place to try and figure out the story behind it. Scientist believe the bow was made of spruce from characteristics seen under a hand lens.
The bow doesn’t seem to be one typical for the area during that time period initially though. It is suspected that this bow was made by the Yupik people, while the park is in the Dena’ina territory. The reason for why it was there is still only assumptions and guesses at this point.
The best part about this find is that it is not typical to find artifacts like this in the area, due to its historical low populations. Less stuff is being left over a big area. So anytime something is found it really adds to the story of how people lived there.
The bow was made from spruce that would have came from high elevation. The spruce trees up on the mountains grow what is called compression wood due to the wind and harsher conditions. This makes them much stronger then the trees that grow below, making them perfect for constructing a bow.
It’s pretty crazy that people were that advanced in their development of making tools and weapons even when they had little tools.
Stories like this are awesome, it gives us hope that more of the story can pieced together showing the heritage behind hunting.
Jason Rogers, an archaeologist with the park simply put why this find is important.
“In Alaska, we just don’t have that kind of development so it’s very rare. It’s very rare for us to come across material like this”
Hopefully this bow leads to more information so we can all understand this thing we love. Especially in areas that have less information available.
It’s pretty cool that 460 years later people are still using bows to chase after wildlife.
