I’ve always been interested in archaeology and “survival”, but when I did an archaeology course at Glasgow University I found these two interests coalesced in the question: “what did people in Europe eat 10,000BC?”
So, when I heard channel 5 was doing a program called “10,000BC” I watched and dissected this to see what I could learn.
And I learnt two things:
- First, many of the academics in archaeology are pretty toffee nosed and dismissed this program out of hand, whereas a similar one on the iron age a few years ago with “upper class accents” went down a storm on BBC.
- The Bulgarian game reserve which was used by the program was a game reserve for one very obvious reason: it had been left to grow wild because no one could grow anything there and there was next to nothing to eat.
However despite knowing the program makers hadn’t given the group a fair chance and more or less condemned them to eight weeks of starvation, I was interested enough to put my name down for the next program. Then … when the application form came … I thought better about it. Then they phoned me and whilst they couldn’t say, I thought they might just have learnt their lesson about the place, so I changed my mind and volunteered for the “slim gym”.
Then the reality dawned. I might “know” how to catch food, I had certainly set traps, collected wild food regularly, had built shelters, fired a bow …. but I had collected that knowledge over many decades and e.g. I realised I hadn’t fired a bow since before my oldest child was born.
So …. even the same night I was up to 2am watching survival programs, watching with horror as even professionals starved, watched with even more horror as I saw that all these survival programs go to places where there is no food (people live where things grow – survival programs go where even the natives cannot find enough food).
And so I went online and bought the cheapest bow of around 40lbs (the minimum some US states allow for hunting wild animals). My confidence was not improved when I got the bow and tried to draw it. Yes I could aim the thing – I hadn’t forgotten everything! But I just could not hold it steady enough – although as the bow only came with one manky arrow, I got plenty of exercise walking up and down to the target (made by folding two enormous cardboard boxes) over and over until it was around 10cm deep.
Then the arrows came. I thought I would quickly get back to what I remembered I could do. Yes, I could occasionally hit the bull, but what I remember was always being on target – but then again, it was always a borrowed bow on a target range after a group of other people had finished using the equipment. And, perhaps I had rose tinted memories?
The truth I think, is that it’s a lot easier to be on target with a bow that is really meant for children which I suspect is so weak it couldn’t punch its way through human skin let alone something tougher.
But finally (after so many shots that it’s torn up two targets and now on the third), I’ve reached my goal:
I can now honestly justify that “I’m a reasonable shot” which I put on my 10,000BC application.
And what is even better – is that with the shooting starting at the Beginning of August and absolutely nothing from channel 5, I can now justifiably think I would have done OK, and watch other people starving themselves for the entertainment of the crowds.
Technical details
For anyone interested the bow is an old fashioned style metal “recurve bow” supposedly with a 39lb draw at 28 inch. But I’ve got gorilla arms and pull well beyond that. In case you are not aware, these are very different to modern “compound bows” which need all the strength (and skill) of a kids bow but do more damage than this one.
The target is a 60cm one at 14.5m. Realistically I should be using a 40cm target at 18m or this 60cm at 30m.
For comparison, I worked out when watching the Olympic sport that they were consistently getting groupings which on my target would be within 3.5cm of the bull. And so they were getting this grouping each and every time in what would be the centre of the gold. So, no where near olympic standard.
And for interest, The target consists of around 100 pieces of cardboard 70cm x 30cm deep laid horizontally and compressed from the top between two bits of flat wood, some re-enforcing cross members (3″ x 1″) pulled toegether using £5 of luggage straps. And as you can the arrows in the centre which gets the most hits (honestly!) are already going quite a way through after just 200 shots. However, so long as I keep it dry, the beauty of this design, is that I just undo the straps, “split the pack in two” and then the centre moves to the outside.
(Ultimately, I plan to replace the centre with an old carpet – which my in laws don’t yet know they will be replacing!)
