Archery is the practice of using a bow that is drawn by hand and held, free of any mechanical device, to shoot arrows. Archery has historically been used in hunting and combat and has become a precision sport. A person practicing archery is called an archer or bowman, and one who is fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite.

The bow seems to have been invented in the late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic. The oldest indication for its use in Europe comes from the Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley north of Hamburg, Germany and date from the late Paleolithic Hamburgian culture (9000–8000 BC).

The arrows were made of pine(tree) and consisted of a main shaft and a 15-20 centimeter (6-8 inches) long fore shaft with a flint point. The oldest bows known so far come from the Holmegard swamp in Denmark. Bows eventually replaced the atlatl as the predominant means for launching shafted projectiles, on every continent except Australia.

Bows and arrows have been present in Egyptian culture since its predynastic origins. In the Levant, artifacts which may be arrow-shaft straighteners are known from the Natufian culture, (ca. 12,800–10,300 BP (before present)) onwards.

Archery was highly developed in Asia and in the Islamic world. In East Asia the ancient Korean civilizations like were well-known for their archery skills. Central Asian and American Plains tribesmen were extremely adept at archery on horseback.

Classic civilization, notably the Persians, Parthians, Indians, Koreans, Chinese and Japanese fielded large numbers of archers in their armies.  In the 1920s, engineers have started development of what is know to be the modern day bow which is the Compound and recurve form. Modern day Cross bows have also been revived as well but looks very much like the original version.

These modern forms are now dominant in modern Western archery; traditional bows are in a minority. In the 1980s, the skills of traditional archery were revived by American enthusiasts, and combined with the new scientific understanding.

The revival of modern primitive archery may be traced to Ishi, who came out of hiding in California in 1911.  Ishi was the last of the Yahi Indian tribe. His doctor, Saxton Pope, learned many of Ishi's archery skills, and passed them on.

Prior to the California Gold Rush, the Yahi population numbered approximately 400. In 1865, Ishi and his family were victims of the Three Knolls Massacre (40 killed), in which approximately 30 Yahi survived.

The remaining Yahi escaped but went into hiding for the next 40 years after cattlemen killed about half of the survivors. Eventually Ishi's mother and other companions died, and he was discovered by a group of butchers in their corral at Oroville on August 29, 1911.

After being noticed by townspeople, Ishi was taken into custody by a local sheriff for his own protection. The "wild man" caught the imagination and attention of thousands of onlookers and curiosity seekers.

He was then moved to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, San Francisco where he lived the remainder of his life in evident contentment, until his death from tuberculosis in 1916.

Ishi, like other California Indians of his time, was an excellent archer.  Among his closest friends at the university was Saxton Pope, a physician called in to care for him.   Pope was particularly fascinated by the bows and arrows Ishi made, and by the practice of archery.

Ishi taught Pope how to make the equipment and the two hunted together in the mountains of California.   After Ishi's death, Pope continued with the archery that Ishi had taught him and went on to write the book Hunting with the Bow and Arrow, which became influential in the development of modern-day archery and archery hunting.