Mounted Archery

Mounted Archery

A horse archer, horsed archer, or mounted archer is a cavalryman armed with a bow, able to shoot while riding from horseback. Archery has occasionally been used from the backs of other riding animals. Mounted archery was a defining characteristic of the Eurasian nomads during antiquity and the medieval period, including Iranian peoples (Scythians, Sarmatians, Sassanids) and Indians in antiquity, and by the Mongols and the Turkic peoples during the Middle Ages. By the expansion of these peoples, the practice also spread to Europe (via the Sarmatians and the Huns) and to East Asia. In East Asia, horse archery came to be particularly honoured in the samurai tradition of Japan, where mounted archery is called Yabusame.

It developed separately among the peoples of the South American pampas and the North American prairies; the Comanches were especially skilled.