Today at my archery club my friend Fred showed us his new toy - a flatbow made from New Zealand Swamp Kauri. It isn't ideal wood for a bow, but it is adequate, and I think it draws at about 40lb. I took a shot, and it is a nice bow. But, the significant feature of this particular piece of wood is that it comes from a log carbon dated at 40,000 - 45,000 years old, which is about the maximum age of peat-preserved Kauri. Kauri, incidentally, is thought to be the oldest workable wood in the world. But seriously, that is some wow-factor - firing a bow made from wood that is older than agriculture, and nearly half as old as our species. Mental.

That's far out....    Since the wood is peat-preserved, it should not be dried out, and peat preserves things because it's largely anaerobic.  That is, little or no free oxygen so no little critters to eat things up.
Most of the best specimens of Neolithic bows we have are recovered from peat bogs.

I saw a recent article on some news show or other about guys going up North to mine rivers for....logs.   Each logging season, numbers of logs are lost in transit down the rivers.  Some sink, get caught in mud banks, whatever.   Some of these are prime hardwood logs of types that are just not available any more, and may have been underwater for 100 years or more.    Evidently perfectly preserved.

if it were my bow i would definitely be afraid to draw it, its probably very expensive if its that old, isnt it?