And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
The bone density increases would be unnoticeable, assuming that the strength required was even particularly high compared to what the rest of their lives required of their right arms, which is highly doubtful.
Bone density absolutely changes from place to place in the human body... It's a function of stress and impact force... Boxers. Black Smiths... etc all have distinctive bone characteristics... all which are easily measurable and verified..
I said that the difference in stress between right and left arms would be too close to be noticeable. They are both butting in quite similar amounts of work. The muscles used are different. So the right bicep might be bigger and the left tricep might be bigger, but that doesn't have a carryover to bone density.
It is nothing like a blacksmith using only one arm to hammer all day while the other does half the amount of work all day.
And pulling a bow for seconds at a time is less stress than farm work or any number of other things that they may have also have done over their lives, so it is the equivalent of me doing sqauts with 315 and then doing leg extensions with 75lbs and saying the latter would cause a change in bone density.
These archers were not modern sedentary men who then took up archery.
I've also heard that a trained archer could loose 12 shafts a minute and do a three angle time on target - one high angle, one medium angle, and the last low angle that would hit the target at roughly the same time.
I'm guessing that pushing with one arm and pulling with the other arm uses equal strength in each arm and would not affect bone growth rates in either. sam
I had a different take on it. Wouldn't the arm that drew the arrow back (I'm assuming right handedness is more common) be stronger since the arm holding the bow could lock the elbow. I'm no archer, but that would be my guess.
Archeologists can identify archers by the bones because the attachment points for the specific muscles used in archery will be larger than in non-archers. Today's regulation target bow has a 30lb draw while compound hunting bows are around 60lbs. Longbows recovered from the Mary Rose which sank in 1545 have been tested. The draw weights of those perfectly preserved bows range from 85 to 160lb. The average was slightly over 110lb. Al_in_Ottawa
For a start the picture is wrong - the English, actually Welsh, long bow men didn't hold the bow vertical but at an angle and they drew it by pushing their arms apart which allowed them to use the higher 100lb plus draw with ease - all described in the history books. The vertical bow was used by the French and other Europeans.
Wouldn’t the load demand on both arms be about equal? One arm is holding the bow and the other is drawing the string; isn’t that about the same effort?
ransome for an english archer in France +/-1350 was 40 shillings (price of four cows). ransomes were profitable. edward III invested 100K pounds in one battle season and was returned a three-fold profit.
Those archers was how Henry V won the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Shakespear wrote a play about Henry V and the lead-up to that battle in the play can be watched on line. Google, " Band of Brothers". Great short scene.---ken
I have heard a Medieval historian say that the movie scenes have it wrong. Archers did not simply loose a barrage of arrows that fell like hail on their opponents. He points out that every depiction of archers during the Medieval period shows archers aiming directly (in a horizontal fashion) at their enemies.
Speaking of "loose," the command for archers was "Loose!" Yet, in "Game of Thrones," when launching boulders with trebuchets in one episode, Daenerys Targaryen yells "Fire." That command wouldn't have been a likely one until matchlocks arrived on the scene.
How do you turn a boy into a good longbowman? Start with his grandfather!
ReplyDeleteThey say the enlarged bones of these archers can be seen today in baseball pitchers. Their throwing arm has bigger bones than the other.
ReplyDeleteLook at the arm of a tennis player with a big serve. I don't know about the bones, but there's a marked difference in muscle.
DeleteDefinitely not true.
ReplyDeleteThe bone density increases would be unnoticeable, assuming that the strength required was even particularly high compared to what the rest of their lives required of their right arms, which is highly doubtful.
Thank you. I thought "Urban Legend".
DeleteBone density absolutely changes from place to place in the human body...
DeleteIt's a function of stress and impact force...
Boxers. Black Smiths... etc all have distinctive bone characteristics... all which are easily measurable and verified..
I didn't say bone density doesn't change.
DeleteI said that the difference in stress between right and left arms would be too close to be noticeable. They are both butting in quite similar amounts of work. The muscles used are different. So the right bicep might be bigger and the left tricep might be bigger, but that doesn't have a carryover to bone density.
It is nothing like a blacksmith using only one arm to hammer all day while the other does half the amount of work all day.
And pulling a bow for seconds at a time is less stress than farm work or any number of other things that they may have also have done over their lives, so it is the equivalent of me doing sqauts with 315 and then doing leg extensions with 75lbs and saying the latter would cause a change in bone density.
These archers were not modern sedentary men who then took up archery.
I've also heard that a trained archer could loose 12 shafts a minute and do a three angle time on target - one high angle, one medium angle, and the last low angle that would hit the target at roughly the same time.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing that pushing with one arm and pulling with the other arm uses equal strength in each arm and would not affect bone growth rates in either.
ReplyDeletesam
I had a different take on it. Wouldn't the arm that drew the arrow back (I'm assuming right handedness is more common) be stronger since the arm holding the bow could lock the elbow. I'm no archer, but that would be my guess.
DeleteWhat I was thinking. Archery is not a one armed endeavor.
DeleteThey could also land every one of their 12 shots a minute on a 6'-0" diameter target at 300 yards.
ReplyDeleteRead some Bernard Cornwell. Fascinating stuff.
Archeologists can identify archers by the bones because the attachment points for the specific muscles used in archery will be larger than in non-archers. Today's regulation target bow has a 30lb draw while compound hunting bows are around 60lbs. Longbows recovered from the Mary Rose which sank in 1545 have been tested. The draw weights of those perfectly preserved bows range from 85 to 160lb. The average was slightly over 110lb.
ReplyDeleteAl_in_Ottawa
For a start the picture is wrong - the English, actually Welsh, long bow men didn't hold the bow vertical but at an angle and they drew it by pushing their arms apart which allowed them to use the higher 100lb plus draw with ease - all described in the history books. The vertical bow was used by the French and other Europeans.
ReplyDeleteWouldn’t the load demand on both arms be about equal? One arm is holding the bow and the other is drawing the string; isn’t that about the same effort?
ReplyDeleteransome for an english archer in France +/-1350 was 40 shillings (price of four cows). ransomes were profitable. edward III invested 100K pounds in one battle season and was returned a three-fold profit.
ReplyDeleteIs the guy in the back a klingon?
ReplyDeleteThose archers was how Henry V won the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. Shakespear wrote a play about Henry V and the lead-up to that battle in the play can be watched on line. Google, " Band of Brothers". Great short scene.---ken
ReplyDeleteLegolas could fire an arrow every 2 seconds and NEVER missed. He doesn't have big bones according to the movie.
ReplyDeleteI have heard a Medieval historian say that the movie scenes have it wrong. Archers did not simply loose a barrage of arrows that fell like hail on their opponents. He points out that every depiction of archers during the Medieval period shows archers aiming directly (in a horizontal fashion) at their enemies.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of "loose," the command for archers was "Loose!" Yet, in "Game of Thrones," when launching boulders with trebuchets in one episode, Daenerys Targaryen yells "Fire." That command wouldn't have been a likely one until matchlocks arrived on the scene.
Yet another example of inserting Africans into European history. Englishmen are not now, and have never been, black.
ReplyDeleteThose arrows are 36 inches long,are drawn to the ear,1/2 inch in diameter, and with a long bodkin point will nail a knights armored leg to his horse
ReplyDeleteThe invention of archery:
ReplyDelete"I REALLY want to stab that guy, but he's waaaay over there ..."