1.
Bow and arrow
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The bow and arrow is a projectile weapon system that predates recorded history and is common to most cultures. Archery is the art, practice, or skill of applying it, a bow is a flexible arc that shoots aerodynamic projectiles called arrows. A string joins the two ends of the bow and when the string is drawn back, the ends of the bow are flexed, when the string is released, the potential energy of the flexed stick is transformed into the kinetic energy of the arrow. Archery is the art or sport of shooting arrows from bows, today, bows and arrows are used primarily for hunting and for the sport of archery. Someone who makes bows is known as a bowyer, and one who makes arrows is a fletcher —or in the case of the manufacture of arrow heads. The bow and arrow appears around the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, 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. After the end of the last glacial period, use of the bow seems to have spread to every inhabited continent, including the New World, the oldest extant bows in one piece are the elm Holmegaard bows from Denmark which were dated to 9,000 BCE. High-performance wooden bows are made following the Holmegaard design. Microliths discovered on the south coast of Africa suggest that arrows may be at least 71,000 years old, the bow was an important weapon for both hunting and warfare from prehistoric times until the widespread use of gunpowder in the 16th century. Organised warfare with bows ended in the mid 17th century in Europe, the British upper class led a revival of archery from the late 18th century. Sir Ashton Lever, an antiquarian and collector, formed the Toxophilite Society in London in 1781, under the patronage of George, the basic elements of a bow are a pair of curved elastic limbs, traditionally made from wood, joined by a riser. Both ends of the limbs are connected by a known as the bow string. By pulling the string backwards the archer exerts compressive force on the section, or belly, of the limbs as well as placing the outer section, or back. While the string is held, this stores the energy released in putting the arrow to flight. The force required to hold the string stationary at full draw is used to express the power of a bow. Other things being equal, a draw weight means a more powerful bow. The various parts of the bow can be subdivided into further sections, the topmost limb is known as the upper limb, while the bottom limb is the lower limb. At the tip of each limb is a nock, which is used to attach the bowstring to the limbs, the riser is usually divided into the grip, which is held by the archer, as well as the arrow rest and the bow window
2.
Flatbow
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A flatbow is a bow with non-recurved, flat, relatively wide limbs that are approximately rectangular in cross-section. Because the limbs are relatively wide, flatbows will usually narrow and become deeper at the handle, with a rounded and this design differs from that of a longbow, which has rounded limbs that are circular or D shaped in cross-section, and is usually widest at the handle. A flatbow can be just as long as a longbow, traditional flatbows are usually wooden self bows, though laminated and composite flatbows have been made in ancient and modern times. The flatbow is a bow design for almost all materials because the stress is more evenly spread out than with rounded limb sections. A bow limb is essentially a flexed beam undergoing bending, when a limb is rounded, as in a longbow, some material sticks out farther from the neutral axis, and thus is put under greater stress. Only particularly resilient timbers can make an effective and powerful wooden longbow, in most parts of the world, common hardwoods may be used to create excellent bows. Suitable and easily available timbers include elm, maple, sycamore, hazel, the flatbow design also lends itself to very dense, high strength woods such as hickory and especially osage orange. This is economical of wood and of the bowyers time, flatbows fell from favour in Europe after the Mesolithic, replaced with yew longbows. The trade of yew wood for English longbows was such that it depleted the stocks of yew over a huge area, flatbows are currently used by the paleolithic Sentinelese tribes of the Andaman Islands. Flatbows survived in areas, such as Finland, where yew does not grow naturally because of the unsuitable climate. The traditional Finnish flatbow is made either from ash, or as birch/pine laminate glued together with fish or hide glue, the American flatbow, also known as the American longbow, was developed in the 1930s. It resulted from scientific investigation into the best cross-sectional shape for a bow limb and this research was expected to explain why the English longbows D-section was superior to all other extant designs. Instead, it showed that the best cross-section was a simple rectangle, the American Flatbow was developed by applying these research findings to the English longbow. The result was an efficient and stable bow which can be made from more common woods. Because of its resemblance to some Native American bows, the American flatbow is also known as the semi-Indian bow. The American flatbow was popularised by Howard Hill and quickly displaced the English longbow as the bow for target shooting. The tips are rather than static
3.
Hunting
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Hunting is the practice of killing or trapping animals, or pursuing or tracking them with the intent of doing so. Hunting wildlife or feral animals is most commonly done by humans for food, recreation, to predators that are dangerous to humans or domestic animals. Lawful hunting is distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species. The species that are hunted are referred to as game or prey and are usually mammals, Hunting can also be a means of pest control. However, hunting has also contributed to the endangerment, extirpation and extinction of many animals. The pursuit, capture and release, or capture for food of fish is called fishing, the practice of foraging or gathering materials from plants and mushrooms is also considered separate from hunting. The word hunt serves as both a noun and a verb, the noun has been dated to the early 12th century, act of chasing game, from the verb hunt. The meaning of a body of persons associated for the purpose of hunting with a pack of hounds is first recorded in the 1570s, meaning the act of searching for someone or something is from about 1600. The verb, Old English huntian to chase game, perhaps developed from hunta hunter, is related to hentan to seize, from Proto-Germanic huntojan, the general sense of search diligently is first recorded c. Hunting has a history and may well pre-date the rise of the species Homo sapiens. Evidence from western Kenya suggests that hunting has been occurring for more two million years. Furthermore, evidence exists that hunting may have one of the multiple environmental factors leading to the Holocene extinction of megafauna. North American megafauna extinction was coincidental with the Younger Dryas impact event, however, in other locations such as Australia, humans are thought to have played a very significant role in the extinction of the Australian megafauna that was widespread prior to human occupation. The closest surviving relatives of the species are the two species of Pan, the common chimpanzee and bonobos. Common chimpanzees have a diet that includes troop hunting behaviour based on beta males being led by an alpha male. Bonobos have also observed to occasionally engage in group hunting. With the establishment of language, culture, and religion, hunting became a theme of stories and myths, as well as such as dance. Hunting was a component of hunter-gatherer societies before the domestication of livestock
4.
War
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War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme aggression, destruction, and mortality, an absence of war is usually called peace. Warfare refers to the activities and characteristics of types of war. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to legitimate military targets. While some scholars see war as a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature, as concerns a belligerents losses in proportion to its prewar population, the most destructive war in modern history may have been the Paraguayan War. In 2013 war resulted in 31,000 deaths, down from 72,000 deaths in 1990, in 2003, Richard Smalley identified war as the sixth biggest problem facing humanity for the next fifty years. Another byproduct of some wars is the prevalence of propaganda by some or all parties in the conflict, the word is related to the Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, and the German verwirren, meaning “to confuse”, “to perplex”, and “to bring into confusion”. In German, the equivalent is Krieg, the Spanish, Portuguese, the scholarly study of war is sometimes called polemology, from the Greek polemos, meaning war, and -logy, meaning the study of. Studies of war by military theorists throughout military history have sought to identify the philosophy of war, asymmetric warfare is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels of military capability or size. Biological warfare, or germ warfare, is the use of weaponized biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, chemical warfare involves the use of weaponized chemicals in combat. Poison gas as a weapon was principally used during World War I. Civil war is a war between forces belonging to the nation or political entity. Conventional warfare is declared war between states in which nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons are not used or see limited deployment, cyberwarfare involves the actions by a nation-state or international organization to attack and attempt to damage another nations information systems. Information warfare is the application of force on a large scale against information assets and systems, against the computers. Nuclear warfare is warfare in which weapons are the primary, or a major. War of aggression is a war for conquest or gain rather than self-defense, the earliest recorded evidence of war belongs to the Mesolithic cemetery Site 117, which has been determined to be approximately 14,000 years old. About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death, since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare
5.
Paleolithic
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It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools, probably by Homo habilis initially,2.6 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BP. The Paleolithic era is followed by the Mesolithic, the date of the Paleolithic–Mesolithic boundary may vary by locality as much as several thousand years. During the Paleolithic period, humans grouped together in small societies such as bands, the Paleolithic is characterized by the use of knapped stone tools, although at the time humans also used wood and bone tools. Other organic commodities were adapted for use as tools, including leather and vegetable fibers, however, due to their nature, surviving artifacts of the Paleolithic era are known as paleoliths. About 50,000 years ago, there was a increase in the diversity of artifacts. For the first time in Africa, bone artifacts and the first art appear in the archaeological record, the first evidence of human fishing is also noted, from artifacts in places such as Blombos cave in South Africa. The new technology generated an explosion of modern humans which is believed to have led to the extinction of the Neanderthals. Humankind gradually evolved from members of the genus Homo—such as Homo habilis. The climate during the Paleolithic consisted of a set of glacial and interglacial periods in which the climate periodically fluctuated between warm and cool temperatures, by c. 50,000 – c. 40,000 BP, the first humans set foot in Australia. By c. 45,000 BP, humans lived at 61°N latitude in Europe, by c. 30,000 BP, Japan was reached, and by c. 27,000 BP humans were present in Siberia, above the Arctic Circle. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, a group of humans crossed Beringia, the term Paleolithic was coined by archaeologist John Lubbock in 1865. It derives from Greek, παλαιός, palaios, old, and λίθος, lithos, stone, human evolution is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of anatomically modern humans as a distinct species. The Paleolithic Period coincides almost exactly with the Pleistocene epoch of geologic time and this epoch experienced important geographic and climatic changes that affected human societies. During the preceding Pliocene, continents had continued to drift from possibly as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current location. South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama, most of Central America formed during the Pliocene to connect the continents of North and South America, allowing fauna from these continents to leave their native habitats and colonize new areas. Africas collision with Asia created the Mediterranean Sea, cutting off the remnants of the Tethys Ocean, climates during the Pliocene became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to modern climates. The formation of an Arctic ice cap around 3 million years ago is signaled by a shift in oxygen isotope ratios and ice-rafted cobbles in the North Atlantic. Mid-latitude glaciation probably began before the end of the epoch, the global cooling that occurred during the Pliocene may have spurred on the disappearance of forests and the spread of grasslands and savannas
6.
Taxus baccata
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Taxus baccata is a conifer native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa, northern Iran and southwest Asia. It is the tree known as yew, though with other related trees becoming known, it may now be known as English yew. The word yew is from Proto-Germanic *īwa-, possibly originally a loanword from Gaulish *ivos, compare Irish ēo, Welsh ywen, baccata is Latin for bearing red berries. The word yew as it was originally used seems to refer to the color brown, the yew was known to Theophrastus, who noted its preference for mountain coolness and shade, its evergreen character and its slow growth. Most Romance languages, with the exception of French, kept a version of the Latin word taxus from the same root as toxic. In Slavic languages, the root is preserved, Russian tis, Slovakian tis, Slovenian tisa. In German it is known as Eibe, in Iran, the tree is known as sorkhdār. The common yew was one of the species first described by Linnaeus. It is one of around 30 conifer species in seven genera in the family Taxaceae and it is a small to medium-sized evergreen tree, growing 10–20 metres tall, with a trunk up to 2 metres diameter. The bark is thin, scaly brown, coming off in small flakes aligned with the stem, the aril is 8–15 millimetres long and wide and open at the end. The arils mature 6 to 9 months after pollination, and with the contained, are eaten by thrushes, waxwings and other birds. Maturation of the arils is spread over 2 to 3 months, the seeds themselves are poisonous and bitter, but are opened and eaten by some bird species including hawfinches, greenfinches and great tits. The aril is not poisonous, it is gelatinous and very sweet tasting, the male cones are globose, 3–6 millimetres diameter, and shed their pollen in early spring. The yew is mostly dioecious, but occasional individuals can be variably monoecious, Taxus baccata can reach 400 to 600 years of age. Some specimens live longer but the age of yews is often overestimated, ten yews in Britain are believed to predate the 10th century. The potential age of yews is impossible to accurately and is subject to much dispute. There is rarely any wood as old as the tree, while the boughs themselves often become hollow with age. One characteristic contributing to yews longevity is that it is able to split under the weight of advanced growth without succumbing to disease in the fracture, as do most other trees
7.
Ulmus glabra
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A large, deciduous tree, it is essentially a montane species, growing at elevations of up to 1500 m, preferring sites with moist soils and high humidity. The tree can form pure forests in Scandinavia and occurs as far north as latitude 67°N at Beiarn in Norway, wych elm has also been successfully introduced to Narsarsuaq, near the southern tip of Greenland. The tree was by far the most common elm in the north, however, this is contested, the correct Gaelic name considered Loch Laomainn, its origin obscure. The word wych comes from the Old English wice, meaning pliant or supple, an older name for the tree was wych hazel, perhaps based on the similar appearance of hazel and wych elm shoots. Some botanists, notably Lindquist have proposed dividing the species into two subspecies, Ulmus glabra subsp, glabra in the south of the species range, with broad leaves, trees often with a short, forked trunk and a low, broad crown Ulmus glabra subsp. Montana Lindqvist in the north of the range, the leaves are narrower, trees commonly with a long single trunk. The wych elm sometimes reaches heights of 40 m, typically with a crown where open-grown. There are not normally root suckers, natural reproduction is by seed alone, the tree is notable for its very tough, supple young shoots, which are always without the corky ridges or wings characteristic of many elms. The alternate leaves are deciduous, 6–17 cm long by 3–12 cm broad, usually obovate with a base, the lobe often completely covering the short petiole. Leaves on juvenile or shade-grown shoots sometimes have three or more lobes near the apex, the perfect hermaphrodite flowers appear before the leaves in early spring, produced in clusters of 10–20, they are 4 mm across on 10 mm long stems and, being wind-pollinated, are apetalous. The fruit is a winged samara 20 mm long and 15 mm broad, with a single, round,6 mm seed in the centre, maturing in late spring. Montana While the species is susceptible to Dutch elm disease. Research in Spain has indicated the presence of a triterpene, alnulin, moreover, once the tree is dying, its bark is quickly colonized by the fungus Phoma, which radically reduces the amount of bark available for the beetle to breed on. In European trials, clones of apparently resistant trees were inoculated with the pathogen, DNA analysis by Cemagref in France has determined the genetic diversity within the species is very limited, making the chances of a resistant tree evolving rather remote. The Swedish Forest Tree Breeding Association at Källstorp produced triploid and tetraploid forms of the tree, in trials conducted in Italy, the tree was found to have a slight to moderate susceptibility to elm yellows, and a high susceptibility to the elm leaf beetle Xanthogaleruca luteola. The wych elm is moderately shade-tolerant, but requires deep, rich soils as typically found along river valleys, however, the species is intolerant of flooding, as it is of prolonged drought. Although rarely used as a street tree owing to its shape, it can be tolerant of urban air pollution, constricted growing conditions. As wych elm does not sucker from the roots, and any seedlings are often consumed by uncontrolled deer populations, the resultant decline has been extreme, and the wych elm is now uncommon over much of its former range
8.
Archery
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Archery is the sport, practice or skill of using a bow to propel arrows. The word comes from the Latin arcus, historically, archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is mainly a competitive sport and recreational activity, a person who participates in archery is typically called an archer or a bowman, and a person who is fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite. The bow and arrow seems to have invented in the later Paleolithic or early Mesolithic periods. The oldest 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 mainshaft, 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 come from the Holmegård swamp in Denmark, bows and arrows have been present in Egyptian culture since its predynastic origins. In the Levant, artifacts that could be arrow-shaft straighteners are known from the Natufian culture, the Khiamian and PPN A shouldered Khiam-points may well be arrowheads. Classical civilizations, notably the Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, Persians, Parthians, Indians, Koreans, Chinese, akkadians were the first to use composite bows in war according to the victory stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad. 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 Sanskrit term for archery, dhanurveda, 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 skilled archers. Central Asian tribesmen and American Plains Indians became extremely adept at archery on horseback, 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 bow enabled mounted archers to use powerful weapons. It is possible that barbarian peoples were responsible for introducing archery or certain types of bows to their civilized counterparts—the Xiong-nu, similarly, short bows seem to have been introduced to Japan by northeast Asian groups. The development of firearms rendered bows obsolete in warfare, albeit efforts were made to preserve archery practice. In Wales and England, for example, the government tried to practice with the Longbow until the end of the 16th century. This was because it was recognised that the bow had been instrumental to military success during the Hundred Years War, early firearms were inferior in rate-of-fire, and were very susceptible to wet weather
9.
Victorian era
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The Victorian era was the period of Queen Victorias reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities. Some scholars date the beginning of the period in terms of sensibilities, the era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period. The later half of the Victorian age roughly coincided with the first part of the Belle Époque era of continental Europe, culturally there was a transition away from the rationalism of the Georgian period and toward romanticism and mysticism with regard to religion, social values, and arts. The end of the saw the Boer War. Domestically, the agenda was increasingly liberal with a number of shifts in the direction of political reform, industrial reform. Two especially important figures in period of British history are the prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. Disraeli, favoured by the queen, was a gregarious Conservative and his rival Gladstone, a Liberal distrusted by the Queen, served more terms and oversaw much of the overall legislative development of the era. The population of England and Wales almost doubled from 16.8 million in 1851 to 30.5 million in 1901, Scotlands population also rose rapidly, from 2.8 million in 1851 to 4.4 million in 1901. However, Irelands population decreased sharply, from 8.2 million in 1841 to less than 4.5 million in 1901, mostly due to the Great Famine. Between 1837 and 1901 about 15 million emigrants departed the UK permanently, in search of a life in the United States, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia. During the early part of the era, politics in the House of Commons involved battles between the two parties, the Whigs/Liberals and the Conservatives. These parties were led by such prominent statesmen as Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, Disraeli, Victoria became queen in 1837 at age 18. Her long reign until 1901 was mainly a time of peace, Britain reached the zenith of its economic, political, diplomatic and cultural power. The era saw the expansion of the second British Empire, Historians have characterised the mid-Victorian era as Britains Golden Years. There was prosperity, as the income per person grew by half. There was peace abroad, and social peace at home, opposition to the new order melted away, says Porter. The Chartist movement peaked as a movement among the working class in 1848, its leaders moved to other pursuits, such as trade unions
10.
Elm
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Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus Ulmus in the plant family Ulmaceae. The genus first appeared in the Miocene geological period about 20 million years ago, Elms are components of many kinds of natural forests. Some individual elms reached great size and age, however, in recent decades, most mature elms of European or North American origin have died from Dutch elm disease, caused by a microfungus dispersed by bark beetles. In response, disease-resistant cultivars have been developed, capable of restoring the elm to forestry, eight species are endemic to North America, and a smaller number to Europe, the greatest diversity is found in Asia. The classification adopted in the List of elm species, varieties, cultivars, a large number of synonyms have accumulated over the last three centuries, their currently accepted names can be found in the list List of elm Synonyms and Accepted Names. Botanists who study elms and argue over elm identification and classification are called pteleologists, as part of the sub-order urticalean rosids they are distant cousins of cannabis, hops, and nettles. The name Ulmus is the Latin name for these trees, while the English elm, the genus is hermaphroditic, having apetalous perfect flowers which are wind-pollinated. Elm leaves are alternate, with simple, single- or, most commonly, doubly serrate margins, usually asymmetric at the base, the fruit is a round wind-dispersed samara flushed with chlorophyll, facilitating photosynthesis before the leaves emerge. All species are tolerant of a range of soils and pH levels but, with few exceptions. The elm tree can grow to height, often with a split trunk creating a vase-shape profile. Dutch elm disease devastated elms throughout Europe and much of North America in the half of the 20th century. It derives its name Dutch from the first description of the disease and its cause in the 1920s by the Dutch botanists Bea Schwarz, DED is caused by a micro-fungus transmitted by two species of Scolytus elm-bark beetle which act as vectors. The disease affects all species of elm native to North America and Europe, fungal spores, introduced into wounds in the tree caused by the beetles, invade the xylem or vascular system. The tree responds by producing tyloses, effectively blocking the flow from roots to leaves, woodland trees in North America are not quite as susceptible to the disease because they usually lack the root-grafting of the urban elms and are somewhat more isolated from each other. In France, inoculation with the fungus of over three hundred clones of the European species failed to find a single variety possessed of any significant resistance. The second, far more virulent strain of the disease Ophiostoma novo-ulmi was identified in Europe in the late 1960s, Elm phloem necrosis is a disease of elm trees that is spread by leafhoppers or by root grafts. This very aggressive disease, with no cure, occurs in the Eastern United States, southern Ontario in Canada. It is caused by phytoplasmas which infect the phloem of the tree, infection and death of the phloem effectively girdles the tree and stops the flow of water and nutrients
