Origins, The Story of Humanity

We had a wonderful introductory course. Flintknapping and fire making. Thank you and great work to everyone who made it out. Join us next time!

A series of four bows were found in a bog at Holmegaard Moor, on the island of Zealand in Denmark. These consist of 2 near-completed bows and 2 other fragments from a similar type of bow. All were made from Elm. The site, and subsequent artifacts were dated to around 8500 years before present. They belonged to a mesolithic group of hunter-gatherers who were part of the Maglemosian culture, which was widespread across Northern Europe from 11,000 to 8000 years before present.

We have attempted to replicate the "holmegaard style" bow using Elm to gauge it's performance. The bowstring is twisted deer rawhide. The nocks are built up with twisted cordage, pine pitch, and sinew (the original artifacts having no carved nocks.) The handle is wrapped in twisted elm bark cordage.