A spear-thrower, spear-throwing lever, or atlatl is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart or javelin throwing, and includes a bearing surface that allows the user to store energy during the throw.
It may consist of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports and propels the butt of the spear. It is usually about as long as the user's arm or forearm. The user holds the spear-thrower in one hand, gripping near the end farthest from the cup. The user puts the butt end of the spear, or dart, in the cup, or grabs the spur with the end of the spear. The spear is much longer than the thrower. The user holds the thrower at the grip end, with the spear resting on the thrower and the butt end of the spear resting in the thrower's cup. The user can hold the spear, with the index and thumb, with the same hand as the thrower, with the other fingers. The user reaches back with the spear pointed at the target. Then the user makes an overhand throwing motion with the thrower while letting go of the spear with the fingers.Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
The spear is thrown by the action of the upper arm and wrist. The throwing arm together with the atlatl acts as a lever. The spear-thrower is a low-mass, fast-moving extension of the throwing arm, increasing the length of the lever. This extra length allows the thrower to impart force to the dart over a longer distance, thus imparting more energy and higher speeds.
Common modern ball throwers (such as lacrosse sticks, the cestas used in jai alai, and molded plastic arms used for throwing tennis balls for dogs to fetch) use the same principle.
A spear-thrower is a long-range weapon and can readily impart speeds of over to a projectile.
Spear-throwers appear early in human history in several parts of the world, and have survived in use in traditional societies until the present day, as well as being revived in recent years for sporting purposes. In the Americas, the Nahuatl word is often used for revived uses of spear-throwers (or the Mayan word ); in Australia, the Dharug word is used instead.
The ancient Greeks and Romans used a leather thong or loop, known as an ankule or amentum, as a spear-throwing device. The Swiss arrow is a weapon that works similarly to an amentum.
Pacific islanders of New Caledonia used a spear thrower similar to the ones used by the ancient Greeks and Romans called a "doigtier". It is not a direct translation of the name and was given by the French colonists that experimented with the tool. It was a thick string wrapped around a dart that gave it spin when it was thrown.
Using replicas of spear-throwers known from the Basketmaker culture and the Basketmaker II era, and using darts of different weights, it has been found that the maximum exit velocity a historical spear-thrower can achieve is 72–108 km/h (45—67 mph). Measurement methods include radar guns, gun chronographs, and analysis of high speed films, to cross-check the results. For comparison, a 25 lb self bow shoots arrows with an exit velocity of 129 km/h (80 mph), while a replica of a 45 lb self bow from the Catawba tribe achieves speeds of 160 km/h (100 mph). Claims of higher speeds of 160 km/h (100 mph) or even higher for historical self-throwers are probably due to improper measurement methods for this class of weapon.
The momentum gained by a spear thrower's dart is 1.8–2.7 kg•m/s, while that of a Catawba bow's arrow is 1.5 kg•m/s. A .357 magnum round of 158 grain gains a momentum of 3.58 kg•m/s.
Design
Spear-thrower designs may include improvements such as thong loops to fit the fingers, the use of flexible shafts or stone balance weights. Dart shafts can be made thinner and highly flexible for added power and range, the fletching can be spiralized to add spin to the dart making it more stable and accurate. Darts resemble large arrows or small spears and are typically from in length and in diameter. Indigenous people on the Andean Altiplano during the middle archaic period adapted their projectile points to a larger size, along with a switch to mammal bones to increase accuracy and weight during a hunt.
Another important improvement to the spear-thrower's design was the introduction of a small weight (between 60 and 80 grams) strapped to its midsection. Some atlatlists maintain that stone weights add mass to the shaft of the device, causing resistance to acceleration when swung and resulting in a more forceful and accurate launch of the dart. Others claim that spear-thrower weights add only stability to a cast, resulting in greater accuracy.
Based on previous work done by William S. Webb, William R. Perkins claims that spear-thrower weights, commonly called "bannerstones", and characterized by a centered hole in a symmetrically shaped carved or ground stone, shaped wide and flat with a drilled hole and thus a little like a large wingnut, are an improvement to the design that created a silencing effect when swung. The use of the device would reduce the telltale "zip" of a swung atlatl to a more subtle "woof" sound that did not travel as far and was less likely to alert prey. Robert Berg's theory is that the bannerstone was carried by hunters as a spindle weight to produce string from natural fibers gathered while hunting, for the purpose of tying on fletching and hafting stone or bone points.
Woomera The woomera, or ‘miru’, allows hunters to apply more force, speed and distance when launching their spears. A woomera is usually made from Mulga wood, and serves many other purposes such as a: receptacle for mixing ochre for traditional paintings for ceremonies, deflection tool of enemies’ spears in battle, fire making saw, or a utensil for chopping game. This tool is usually long and wide, and comes in a concave, elliptical shape.
Artistic designs Several Stone Age spear-throwers (usually now incomplete) are decorated with carvings of animals: the British Museum has one decorated with a mammoth, and there is one decorated with a hyena in France. Many pieces of decorated bone may have belonged to bâtons de commandement.
The Aztec atlatl was often decorated with snake designs and feathers, potentially evocative of its association with Ehecatl, the Aztec wind deity.Mexicolore's page on the atlatl, and its connection with Ehecatl
History
Wooden spears date back to at least 400,000 years ago, as indicated by the Clacton Spear and the Schöningen spears.Allington-Jones, L., (2015) Archaeological Journal, 172 (2) 273–296 The Clacton Spear – The Last One Hundred Years While the spear-thrower is capable of casting a dart well over one hundred meters, it is most accurately used at distances of twenty meters or less. The spearthrower is believed to have been in use by Homo sapiens since the Upper Paleolithic (around 30,000 years ago). Most stratified European finds come from the Magdalenian (late upper Palaeolithic). In this period, elaborate pieces, often in the form of animals, are common. The earliest reliable data concerning atlatls have come from several caves in France dating to the Upper Paleolithic, about 21,000 to 17,000 years ago. The earliest known example is a 17,500-year-old Solutrean atlatl made of reindeer antler, found at Combe Saunière (Dordogne), France. It is possible that the atlatl was invented earlier than this, as Mungo Man from 42,000 BP displays arthritis in his right elbow, a pathology referred to today as the "Atlatl elbow," resulting from many years of forceful torsion from using an atlatl. At present, there is no evidence for the use of atlatls in Africa. Peoples such as the Maasai and Khoisan throw spears without any aids, but the use of atlatls in hunting is limited in comparison to spears because the animal must be close and already immobile.
During the Ice Age, the atlatl was used by humans to hunt megafauna. Ice Age megafauna offered a large food supply when other game was limited, and the atlatl gave more power to pierce their thicker skin. In this time period, atlatls were usually made of wood or bone. Improvements made to spears' edge made it more efficient as well.
In Europe, the spear-thrower was supplemented by the bow and arrow in the Epi-Paleolithic. Along with improved ease of use, the bow offered the advantage that the bulk of elastic energy is stored in the throwing device, rather than the projectile. Arrow shafts can therefore be much smaller and have looser tolerances for spring constant and weight distribution than atlatl darts. This allowed for more forgiving flint knapping: dart heads designed for a particular spear thrower tend to differ in mass by only a few percent. By the Iron Age, the amentum, a strap attached to the shaft, was the standard European mechanism for throwing lighter javelins. The amentum gives not only range, but also spin to the projectile.
The spear-thrower was used by early Americans as well. It may have been introduced to America during the immigration across the Bering Land Bridge, and despite the later introduction of the bow and arrow, atlatl use was widespread at the time of first European contact. Atlatls are represented in the art of multiple pre-Columbian cultures, including the Basketmaker culture in the American Southwest, Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula, and Moche in the Andes of South America. Atlatls were especially prominent in the iconography of the warriors of the Teotihuacan culture of Central Mexico. A ruler from Teotihuacan named Spearthrower Owl is an important figure described in Mayan stelae. Complete wooden spear-throwers have been found on dry sites in the western United States and in waterlogged environments in Florida and Washington. Several Amazonian tribes also used the atlatl for fishing and hunting. Some even preferred this weapon over the bow and arrow and used it not only in combat but also in sports competitions. Such was the case with the Tarairiú, a Tapuya tribe of migratory foragers and raiders inhabiting the forested mountains and highland savannahs of Rio Grande do Norte in mid-17th-century Brazil. Anthropologist Harald Prins offers the following description:The atlatl, as used by these Tarairiu warriors, was unique in shape. About long and wide, this spear thrower was a tapering piece of wood carved of brown hard-wood. Well-polished, it was shaped with a semi-circular outer half and had a deep groove hollowed out to receive the end of the javelin, which could be engaged by a horizontal wooden peg or spur lashed with a cotton thread to the proximal and narrower end of the throwing board, where a few scarlet parrot feathers were tied for decoration. [Their] darts or javelins ... were probably made of a two-meter long wooden cane with a stone or long and serrated hard-wood point, sometimes tipped with poison. Equipped with their uniquely grooved atlatl, they could hurl their long darts from a great distance with accuracy, speed, and such deadly force that these easily pierced through the protective armor of the Portuguese or any other enemy.The spear-thrower was an important part of life, hunting, and religion in the ancient Andes. The earliest known spear-thrower of the South Americas had a proximal handle piece and is commonly referred to as an estólica in Spanish references to indigenous Andean culture . Estólica and atlatl are therefore synonymous terms. The estólica is best known archaeologically from Nazca culture and the Inca civilization, but the earliest examples are known from associations with Chinchorro mummies. The estólica is also known from Moche culture, including detailed representations on painted pottery, and in representations on textiles of the Wari culture.