Tribesmen from Central Asia (after the domestication of the horse) in addition to American Plains Indians (after gaining access to horses by Europeans) developed a great skill in archery from a horseback. Lightly armored, yet highly mobile archers were excellently suited to combat within the Central Asian steppes, and they were a significant part of armies that fought to conquer vast areas of Eurasia. Shorter bows are more suited for use on horses, while the compound bow enabled mounted archers to make use of powerful weapons.
Seljuk Turks used mounted archers in the European First Crusade, especially at the Battle of Dorylaeum (1097). Their strategy was to fire at the enemy infantry, and make use of their great mobility to stop enemies from closing upon them. Empires throughout the Eurasian region often strongly correlated their respective “barbarian” counterparts with the use of the bow and arrow to the point that states such as the Han Dynasty referred to their counterparts, the Xiong-nu in the name of “Those Who Draw the Bow”.
For example, Xiong-nu mounted bowmen made them far more than matchable to the Han military, and their threat was, at a minimum, to blame for Chinese expanding into Ordos region, to create a more powerful, more strong buffer area against them. There is a possibility that “barbarian” peoples are the ones who introduced archery or certain types of bows to their “civilized” counterparts–the Xiong-nu and the Han being just two examples. Similar to short bows, they appear to have been first introduced into Japan by the northeast Asian groups.
