The most amazing thing is how did they even come up with bows and arrows in the first place. An atlatl is kind of obvious, maybe, it's just an extension of your arm, someone might have realized it eventually. But a bow? That's much harder and much less obvious. Humanity took millennia to invent much more obvious things such as the wheel or monjolos.

Using wood's elastic proprieties is not obvious at all. Choosing the right kind and shape is essential. Bows also have no "prototype stage", a bow either works perfectly or it is useless. Someone 50k years ago came up with completely useful bows capable or hunting at least small animals. This person must've been a genius.

Whatever the sapiens do in the bedroom is their business

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What are some popular and fairly unbiased introduction to world history for people who are generally not interested in history?

Trying to get someone (a non-Westerner who has been living here since an early age) interested in reading about history, but I do know they're not interested except for a mild curiosity about world history. They're through a stage in their life where they may want to use history to make sense of their life. But I'm not familiar with books on world history myself, only with specific areas (e.g., science history).

Now, I know there is no escaping that history will have its biases, and that a book written by an English-speaking author in a Western country and for Western readership will likely have some degree of pro-Western biases. And that a popular world history book of only a few hundred pages will necessarily simplify history and leave out important events.

But some works of history are based on stronger scholarship than others, which have a political agenda or are written by people without the necessary educational background. So it's not all the same, but at the same time no work is "perfect."

So I want to ask for your help in getting some recommendations. Appreciate it.

Australian Aboriginals didn't use a bow and arrow though. Or is that not what you meant?

One-shot 100 ungulates to unlock a new camo for the bow

That was a sick expansion pack for sure.

I don’t think your mom would appreciate you talking about her like that

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actually I could easily one shot any large ungulate

it can be tough, but the first place to start would be in the works of the most recent studies on the topic published for an academic audience. Look for ones that are published by University of _____ Press, and the like. Usually there will be a historiography in the introduction or first chapter. This isn't a universal rule, but it's the quickest way.

Now if you are studying to be a historian, building your own is good practice and a skill you'll need to get down before you get to the postgraduate level. Again, you'd want to start with the most recent academic works published by university presses and the like. Things that are peer-reviewed, and written for an academic audience. See who they keep mentioning, who they keep citing, and note whether it's in agreement, or disagreement. Then trace that back, who are those people citing, who are they discussing, and again their thoughts. What new evidence or approaches are they bringing to the table? Eventually it will become evident who the big dogs are, the most impactful works, study those ones well. Build an annotated bibliography to help keep things sorted (and to remind you of what you've already read and the gist of it) and then once you have that solid foundation it's about then approaching it from the start and showing how the field grew, and changed, over time and what's now missing and how your own research will fit into that gap.

Large game is far more amenable to persistence predation, and non-fatal injuries are a vital part of that hunting style. It’s almost impossible to drop a large ungulate with a single shot, even with the most advanced compound bows available today, with carbon fiber shafts and titanium heads and all kinds of TactiCool gizmos.

The question is more when. Did it come with the first migrations out of Africa? Or did it come in later migrations? Or was the concept independently developed n Europe? Or somewhere else (Eurasian steppes would be a good bet) and brought from there to Europe instead of from Africa?

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personality is far more important when it comes to drunken sailors

Hunters coming from tropical rainforest environments would also have access to types of wood far harder than the more common hard woods. I could only speculate that some of this might have been suitable for making some impressively sharp arrows/spears.

Tooling marks are very obvious from natural rock formations.

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Cmon guys it’s 2023. They’re LGBTQ sapiens.

Sweden is certainly on my list of places to revisit but I don't think it's happening this year sadly

They still are pulling up stuff from the Wydah. The new museum (not the old one in P Town) is fantastic. Tons of artifacts on display (from pirate weapons to dinner implements to actual treasure) and you can even see artifacts trapped inside concretions that they are slowly trying to free.