Atlatl hunting

I built a decidedly un-traditional atlatl a couple of years ago, when I was more involved in knife-throwing. A lot of the throwing pages had links to other "hurled" weapons, and I decided to make my own.

I carved the thrower itself from a piece of lumber, and made darts from those 6' vinyl-covered aluminum plant stakes you can pick up at any hardware store. Weighted the head end with wrapped wire solder for balance and made the fletching from....Duct tape!
I have not had much time to refine the thing, but it is great fun, and you can indeed get some impressive distances. There are quite a lot of pages on the subject, ranging from commercially-made items, suppliers of traditional materials, and so forth.
Our Anthropology department had an atlatl "event" a couple of years ago, with all the students making their own and trying to spear a cardboard-box "mastodon".
 
There's been some discussion of atlatls in the Wilderness & Survival forum at this website. The cool thing about an atlatl is once you've learned how to use one, it's much quicker and easier to make than a bow.
 
My college professor had one of those things. I don't know if he ever hunted with it, but he would sometimes take it out in the Quad to throw. Man, those things go a long way!

It's lucky that a passerby never got one through the ear. :)

-Bob
 
The caveman was more advanced in some ways than we give him credit for. Any specific links that you enjoyed, or should I just Google atlatl?
 
Some of the later (Neolithic) models featured a detachable "head" which held the Clovis-style flint spearhead. The main shaft of the dart was just a tapered friction-fit in this head. When the dart struck it's target, the dart would pop out, leaving the head in the critter.
The sturdy hunter would then run up, stick a new head on the dart, and throw again. (If the P/O'd wooly rhinocerous didn't stomp him!)
 
It seems an adabtle device for a type of hunt that wont charge when injured at close range. Anything with horns and a larger body mass than the size of a man will make a last ditch charge when struck with pain or if its cornered into confussion.The idea is a good one and has been applied to modern day firearms if looked at in realistic terms. If it really is stone age hunting skills then I have to tip my hat at the the guys with the nerve to use it at close quaters in a hunt.
 
When I was a wee lad we used to make 'Dutch Arrows'. Basically a 4 foot bamboo cane with cereal packet flights at one end and a penknife blade or sharpened nail at the other with a couple of turns of lead wire to weight the tip. Near the flight end, inboard of the flight you make a notch. That is your arrow. You launcher is a piece of cord with a loop at one end and a knot at the other. The critical thing is the length of the string which as about 3" short than the arrow. Put the end with the knot on the notch in the arrow, put one turn of string around the arrow and over the knot. Put the loop over one of your fingers, and hold the arrow near the point. Run and throw the arrow releasing the tip, and whip the string which propels the arrow. As the arrow leaves, the knot in the notch releases. Adding a couple of turns of the string around the shaft makes the arrow spin like rifling as does angling the flights. We used to be able to throw about 100 yards. The competition was to see who could throw the furthest. The arrow had to stick in the ground point to count. Once got a surprise when a lady walking a dog walked into the line of fire whilst the arrow was mid flight. A few months later the same lady walked into the path of a Mills 32 hand grenade I had just thrown. Happy days :D
 
"Dart" is just the term anthro-type guys use for the atlatl projectile. Most are rather lighter than a typical spear, more like a javelin. Earlier projectiles had no fletching, more advanced types had some sort of feathering for stability. More advanced atlatls incorporated a shaped stone attached near the end you held; possibly as a counterweight.

As I recall, some primitive folks used rather large projectiles.

That "Dutch Arrow" thing....There was quite a lot of information on this practice on the "Thrower" site:

http://www.sonic.net/~quine/thrower.html

Seems it was quite popular in the British Isles, and some amazing distances were obtained.
 
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