Gestion des compétitions et fédérations de Archery

Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows at a target. The word comes from the Latin arcus, meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity. A person who practices archery is typically called an archer, bowman, or toxophilite.

The oldest known evidence of arrows (not found with surviving bows) comes from South African sites such as Sibudu Cave, where the remains of bone and stone arrowheads have been found dating approximately 72,000 to 60,000 years ago.

However, the earliest remains of complete bows and arrows are found in Northern Europe. These include the evidence found at Mannheim-Vogelstang, in modern-day Germany, dated 17,500 to 18,000 years ago, and also at Stellmoor dated 11,000 years ago.

Azilian points found in Grotte du Bichon, Switzerland, alongside the remains of both a bear and a hunter, with flint fragments found in the bear's third vertebra, suggest the use of arrows at 13,500 years ago.

Other signs of its use in Europe come from the Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley north of Hamburg, Germany and dates from the late Paleolithic, about 10,000–9000 BC. The arrows were made of pine and consisted of a main shaft and a 15–20 cm (5.9–7.9 in) fore shaft with a flint point. There are no definite earlier bows; previous pointed shafts are known, but may have been launched by spear-throwers rather than bows. The oldest bows known so far comes from the Holmegård swamp in Denmark. At the site of Nataruk in Turkana County, Kenya, obsidian bladelets found embedded in a skull and within the thoracic cavity of another skeleton, suggest the use of stone-tipped arrows as weapons about 10,000 years ago. Bows eventually replaced the spear-thrower as the predominant means for launching shafted projectiles, on every continent except Australasia, though spear-throwers persisted alongside the bow in parts of the Americas, including Mexico and among the Inuit.

Bows and arrows have been present in Egyptian and neighbouring Nubian culture since its respective predynastic and Pre-Kerma origins. In the Levant, artifacts that could be arrow-shaft straighteners are known from the Natufian culture, (c. 10,800–8,300 BC) onwards.

Classical civilizations, notably the Babylonians, Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, Persians, Parthians, Romans, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, and Japanese fielded large numbers of archers in their armies. Akkadians were the first to use composite bows in war according to the victory stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad. Egyptians referred to Nubia as "Ta-Seti," or "The Land of the Bow," since the Nubians were known to be expert archers, and by the 16th Century BC Egyptians were using the composite bow in warfare. The Bronze Age Aegean Cultures were able to deploy a number of state-owned specialized bow makers for warfare and hunting purposes already from the 15th century BC. The Welsh longbow proved its worth for the first time in Continental warfare at the Battle of Crécy. In the Americas archery was widespread at European contact.

Archery was highly developed in Asia. The composite bow was likely invented in central Asia, with the Scythians being the likely inventors of the first composite bows. The Sanskrit term for archery, dhanurvidya, came to refer to martial arts in general. In East Asia, Goguryeo, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea was well known for its regiments of exceptionally skilled archers.

The medieval shortbow was technically identical with the classical era bows, having a range of approximately 91 m (299 ft). It was the primary ranged weapon of the battlefield through the early medieval period. Around the tenth century the crossbow was introduced in Europe. Crossbows generally had a longer range, greater accuracy and more penetration than the shortbow, but suffered from a much slower rate of fire. Crossbows were used in the early Crusades, with models having a range of 274 m (899 ft) and being able to penetrate armour or kill a horse.

During the late medieval period the English army famously relied on massed archers armed with the longbow. The French army relied more on the crossbow. Like their predecessors archers were more likely to be peasants or yeomen than men-at-arms. The longbow had a range of up to 270 m (890 ft). However its lack of accuracy at long ranges made it a mass weapon rather than an individual one. Significant victories attributable to the longbow, such as the Battle of Crecy and Battle of Agincourt resulted in the English longbow becoming part of military lore.

The Scythians became extremely adept at archery on horseback, and may have invented the first true composite bow, which they spread across Europe and Asia. Lightly armoured, but highly mobile archers were excellently suited to warfare in the Central Asian steppes, and they formed a large part of armies that repeatedly conquered large areas of Eurasia. Shorter bows are more suited to use on horseback, and the composite bow enabled mounted archers to use powerful weapons. Seljuk Turks used mounted archers against the European First Crusade, especially at the Battle of Dorylaeum (1097). One of their tactics was to shoot at the enemy infantry, and use their superior mobility to prevent the enemy from closing with them. Empires throughout the Eurasian landmass often strongly associated their respective "barbarian" counterparts with the usage of the bow and arrow, to the point where powerful states like the Han dynasty referred to their neighbours, the Xiong-nu, as "Those Who Draw the Bow". For example, Xiong-nu mounted bowmen made them more than a match for the Han military. It is possible that "barbarian" peoples were responsible for introducing archery or certain types of bows to their "civilized" counterparts.

Native Americans developed a culture of horseback archery after the introduction of the horse by European explorers in the second millennium.

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