What was in the belly?

[BowEd]

Maybe if the horn or antler was carved in a way along with the insert in there it had sort of extended wings that covered up those wood edges on top of the wood belly covering the belly just a little more.Looks like something to carve on fitting siting at the camp fire but then again those edges might be suseptible to the compressive forces too and crack or something......lol

[gfugal]

Maybe it was wood. After all it is a bow. Plus if it is prehistoric it had all the time to rot away

*oops i was under the impression the bow was made of antler or bone. After further reading i guess its not. I suspect it was a laminent of some kind and the belly material was lost

[willie]

Maybe this was for a antler or some other material inlay. There is one old northern plains bow with antler inlay in the belly about this size. The antler only makes up 1/3 the width of the belly set in a groove like this

good to hear about a possible similar bow. Thanks Chuck

Greg, if you consider wood, then the belly laminate might well have been some dense desert tree or bush,  perhaps something that may not grow big enough for a full size bow, but big enough to piece together some sort of belly insert, I dunno, I am not familiar with the desert species. but I have heard about ironwood and other dense shrubs

[Springbuck]

You wanted wild a speculative . How about this is another"archaeologists got it wrong" and this is a radical RD where the back is actually the belly and the groove is for sinew. Huh, huh wild enough??

 
I like this one best.  A real ROPE of sinew could be laid in that groove, then tied down with wrappings.  The asymmetrical limbs are from leaning against a cave wall for centuries.  It wouldn't be all that far off from several Arctic bows on the Smithsonian NAEC list, other than they have flatter limbs and use bridges to center the cable.

[upstatenybowyer]

Bead, I like that idea of yours with the wings of horn coming out from the middle.

SB, They have one of those arctic bows in our local science museum in Rochester. Circa 1900s. Talk about wide and fat limbs! I like DC's idea too. Not that wildly speculative actually.

[DuBois]

I am inclined to lean toward SB's idea somewhat, but with a little different angle. Groove side is not belly, it' the back.

I think it is a groove for a cable backing and that is why there are 2 sets of knock grooves and the notch in the top as well. bow string in the outer set and cable backing over the top and bottom notches to wrap the opposite direction as the bow string in the outer set of nocks. I have been thinking on something like this for a while.

I think it would have to have the cable applied first and then strung up for shooting.