Archaeological Anthropology
TOPIC: Human evolution and the bow & arrow

Summary
Archaeologists study the material remains left by our ancestors in order to interpret cultural variation and changes in the past, more over it focuses on how human evolution. Human beings construct niches by inventing ways of using their relationships with on another and with the physical environment to make a living. As an example, referring to the subsistence strategies, we may tell that it can be divided into 2 different subtopic, food collectors and food producers. And in this case bow and arrow belongs the category of the tools of foragers. The tools allowed hunters to shoot prey more accurate than with spear. Archeologist argues that the innovation is more than a technological revolutions; it had a social consequences. Conferring to the scientific paper, there are two main major theories of criteria for falsification. One is Social-coercion theory; it’s an explanation for the rise of social complexity from Stony Brook University biologists Paul Bingham and Joanne Souza states from the new article. The primary prediction is when local subsistence capacity permits; local introduction of the bow will rapidly be followed by increases in social scale and economic intensifications. Another theory is Warfare theory, and the primary prediction is the local introduction of elite bow will result in increased interpolity warfare, with increases in social complexity and economic intensification resulting from the demands or effects of increased warfare, stated from the paper. Yet, how can the bow be a cause of social complexity increase? All models are acting as superior in performance to its predecessors. According to those idea, the introduction of a more and effective weapon system gave social groups a safer, more reliable way to coerce uncooperative individuals to support the efforts of the group or to seek another one somewhere else. With all those theories, they all suggest that such an important technological innovation could have on all aspects of a society.

Concepts
There are many ideas that are relating to what the textbook is saying, as an example, both the news and the articles talk about increasing social complexity, and in chapter 7, anthropologists explain the rise of complex societies as requiring knowledge of architecture, textiles and metallurgy and also presupposed a form of social organization that provide multi tasking. From chapter 6, “How do we know about the Human Past”, the concept fully describe how archaeologists discover evolutions with leftovers. And in chapter 5, it talks about the early history of bows and arrow, and how it helped with survival, by providing enough food. The article is talking about social complexity and arrival of the bow: Criteria for Falsification Of Two Major Theories. Moreover, the news states that “Blitz and Porth conclude that the new social roles that arose out of the need for community defense laid the foundations for the rise of social complexity culminating in the elite chiefs who rules the Mississippian metropolises, such as Cahokia in Illinois.” Moreover, “….an important technological innovation could have on all aspects of a society.” Another point that relates to the idea, from the article is that “This increase in attacker numbers allowed by the bow has especially powerful effects in numerical asymmetric conflicts within or between human coalitions.”, and it’s the reason that bow can ne a cause of social complexity increasing. As a conclusion, the concepts stated in both paper, is bow and arrow increase the society complexity.

Questions
1. I agree with the conclusions of the author, because bow and arrow do show a great impact of increasing social complexity, with an efficient tool for hunting, and finding enough food, other people have more spare time to work on different areas of fields.
2. The question being raised after reading the article and the paper is that, without the tool? Is it possible that evolution of human happens, since arrow and bow have great influences?
3. The questions are important to research about this topic in the future are is there any replacement of bow and arrow? Do they work as the same thing? And does it cause the same evolution to human? The questions are important because different tools may cause different results in our life nowadays, also the differences of social complexity may be also be influenced to.

Comparing 1. The main differences of the two pieces are that the news article is less data provided and only focus on small portion the topic, while the research paper talks about the whole idea of human evolution and the bow and arrow. 2. Yes I do believe that the news article fairly represents the content of the academic paper, because it talks about the brief idea with the specific data provided. The news article seems short yet it provided the most exact information that I am looking for. 3. The news article is better to understand and to quote from, moreover it’s less easier to get loss in the massive information provided in the research paper.

Citations
News articles
Bradley T. Lepper
Bow and arrow forever changed ancient cultures, The Columbus Dispatch Aug 4, 2013

Academic Paper
Paul M. Bingham, Joanne Souza, John H. Blitz
Social Complexity and the Bow in the Prehistoric North American Record

Textbook
Lavenda, Robert H. and Emily A. Schultz 2012
Chapter 5: What Can the Fossil Record Tell Us about Human Origins?
Chapter 6: How Do We Know about the Human Past?
Chapter 7: Why Did Humans Settle Down, Build Cities, and Establish States.