<P> When not in use, bows are generally kept unstrung, meaning one or both ends of the bowstring are detached from the bow . This removes all residual tension on the bow, and can help prevent it from losing strength or elasticity over time . For many bow designs, this also lets it straighten out more completely, reducing the space needed to store the bow . Returning the bowstring to its ready - to - use position is called stringing the bow . </P> <P> The bow and arrow appears around the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic . After the end of the last glacial period, use of the bow seems to have spread to every inhabited region, except for Australasia and most of Oceania . </P> <P> The earliest definite remains of bow and arrow are from Europe . Possible fragments from Germany were found at Mannheim - Vogelstang dated 17,500 - 18,000 years ago, and 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 . 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 . Microliths discovered on the south coast of Africa suggest that projectile weapons of some sort may be at least 71,000 years old . </P> <P> The oldest extant bows in one piece are the elm Holmegaard bows from Denmark which were dated to 9,000 BCE . Several bows from Holmegaard, Denmark, date 8,000 years ago . High - performance wooden bows are currently made following the Holmegaard design . The Stellmoor bow fragments from northern Germany were dated to about 8,000 BCE, but they were destroyed in Hamburg during the Second World War, before carbon 14 dating was available; their age is attributed by archaeological association . </P>

When was the bow and arrow first invented