NHER 4460 (Find Spot record) - Neolithic or Bronze Age bow

Around 1955. Stray Find.
Found by [1] while cutting a new dyke, about 6 feet [1.8m] below surface:
Wooden bow. Cut in half with a turf spade.
W.F. Curtis says fen has shrunk 6 feet [1.8m].
Bow 5 feet 5 1/2 inches [1.7m] long, semi-circular section, nocks at ends.
See drawings (S1) and (S2) and photograph (S3) and (S4).
On loan to Norwich Castle Museum (NWHCM : L1971.10)
Information from (S5). See also correspondence (S6) in file.
Amended by P. Watkins (HES), 30 August 2018.

Findspot 20 to 30 yards [18 to 27m] north of dyke, 797 feet [243m] west of road.
E. Rose (NLA).
Information from (S7).

The circumstance in which the bow was found are described in more detail in (S8) (in which it is also illustrated). It is also recorded that the findspot was investigated by Gale Sieveking of the British Museum and Richard Simms of the Cambridge Botany School in the summer of 1971. This work, together with an analysis of pollen from deposits adhering to the bow itself, suggested two possible horizons from which it may have come, both of which would be consistent with an Early Bronze Age date. The finder's identification of the wood as yew was also confirmed.
It is stated that the form of the bow itself is consistent with the small number of known Neolithic and Bronze Age longbows from Britain.
P. Watkins (HES), 30 August 2018.