Atlatl

[Leona Conner]

My book on Ancient North America says that the Atlatls were used by Paleo-Indian cultures as long as 8000 BCE. Their use soon spread throughout most of the cultures in the southern part of what is now the U.S. It even spread further south to Mexico.

[Minimalist]

R/S is quite correct about the expense of making a bow, arrows, and training a bowman but we are not talking about English longbowmen here in a military formation.

Most American Indians used the bow for hunting and it was a primitive weapon compared to the aforementioned longbow...but still effective enough to bring down local game.

It is a little known fact that the main reason that archery went out of style among European armies are those very factors R/S alluded to. It took a long time to train an archer to the standards needed to be useful militarily.
So while arrows in the hands of an expert had a better range and rate of fire than muskets, the fact is that it was relatively easy to train a man to follow 10 steps to load and discharge a musket.


Perhaps those Indians had their own atlatl re-enactor group?

[stan gilliam]

In a brief internet search I didn't find anything about 50k year old
Australian atlatls.

Several references said the oldest atlatl found is 19000 years old.
Apparently a lot of people believe that the a.a. was invented in Europe.

Maybe gunny has something more to tell us.

[stan gilliam]

Bob, Maybe you and RS could cite something confirming what you say
about the "expense" of bows and arrows. I understand the concept of
non-monetary expense...i.e., time and effort, or maybe you mean they didn't give you the
"bang for the buck."

To make an effective a.a. you have to make the thrower and the darts, which are longer than arrows, and then there's the three-part system including the shaft and separate tip. And then there's the "bannerstone."

You also seem to be saying that the atl and bow co-existed for a while.

(BTW, I just read about the Mongols and their very effective archery.)

[gunny]

Scallern and Perdiz arrowheads in Texas (the most common types) are no older than 1000 A.D. The bow and arrow was very slow arriving this far south. Did the Aztecs have the bow when Cortez arrived in 1519?

[Minimalist]

Stan,

Actually finding an article on the web on this subject has proven somewhat elusive. I used to belong to a military gaming club which put out magazines and I read an extensive article about the question of archery v gunpowder but that was a long time ago and obviously never got to the web.

I happen to own one of these little darlings, however.



This is the British Long Land Service Musket, known as the Brown Bess and in more or less constant use in one form or another from about 1690 to 1820. That makes it and its French counterpart, the Charleville (which I also have) the two most tested firearms in military history seeing Britain and France were officially at war for much of that time and unofficially at war for the rest of it. If you look closely, you will note that it has no sights. The blob of metal in the front is a bayonet lug. Accuracy was not a premium. They wanted rate of fire. I have fired mine hundreds of times and, at a range of 50 yards you don't want to piss me off. From 50 to 100 things get more problematical. Over a hundred I was lucky to hit the hill behind the target.

Using pre-made cartridges the best I ever managed was 3 shots in a minute...about average for a line unit but certainly not fast enough for an elite Guards regiment. It was fairly easy to train a recruit to load and fire this weapon by following the simple commands of the officers. Once loaded, everyone pointed their gun in the general direction of the target and let loose.

A good longbowman could put five arrows in the air before the first hit the ground. In order to do this he would have to have been well trained for a long time aside from being strong enough to draw the bow. In order to get full distance from the yard long arrows one had to pull it all the way back to the point. Pulling a 70 pound bow that far that quickly required great strength and stamina.

While the bow itself was fairly easy to make the arrows were something else. It was a skill combining wood working, metal working and fletching(the feathers on the back to make it fly true.)

While looking around for you I did see a reference to an early English observation that Indian bows were effective at 40 yards and had a max range of about 120. That would have been more than enough for hunting in the woods.

I'll make another search tomorrow and see if I can find an actual discussion of this issue.

[gunny]

Benjamin Franklin wanted to organize a company of longbowmen to combat the British line. No, he was told, it would not be fair to the British. We must be gentlemen.

[Rokcet Scientist]

[quote="stan"][quote]Cheaper and easier to manufacture than bows and requires far less (supervised) training to master to a practically useful level: soldiering.[/quote]

Rokcet, I don't understand this comment. We are talking about hunter-gatherers, aren't we?

In that context, what do you mean by soldiering, and why is a bow more expensive than an atlatlatl?

I know you have an answer! [/quote]

Yes, we are talking about hunters-gatherers, who would claim a (tribal) territory, so would have had to conquer it and defend it. In other words: war with the neighbors!
But daily hunting obviously also required 'a practically useful level'. Much harder to attain – and retain! – with bow and arrow than with atlatls.
You should try it: the proof of the pudding is in the eating, isn't it?

Bows are more expensive than atlatls to make because they require more knowledge, experience and time (to make one that actually works).

[Frank Harrist]

I have thrown a dart with an atlatl. It's is surprisingly easy to throw far and accurately. On my second throw I hit my target. As for the bow in america, it came around about 500 or 600 AD. In fact most "arrowheads" that people find in the US are actually atlatl dart points. Actual arrowheads are very small and light. Dart points are a little larger and heavier. The darts were about 6 feet long with a detachable portion about 6 inches to a foot from the end. This part had the point which stayed in the game. I won't get into all the details because I'm sure you all know already. I can't remmeber which but one state was trying to open an atlatl hunting season this past year. Seems to me that one state already has one. It's a really cool weapon. I keep saying I'm gonna make me one just to play with. Maybe I'll get up the gumption to do so one day.

[Rokcet Scientist]

BTW, I've always considered the term 'hunters-gatherers' a distorting nomenclature. Because it suggests they all did nothing but hunting and gathering. While it was the men doing the hunting, and the women doing the gathering. Just like the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin today still do.

[Barracuda]

Sorry I don't have the link , but I read that the state of PA is considering allowing a deer hunting season for the use of the Atlatl.

Another group that used the Atlatl was the Inuit. I am a sea kayaker, and anyone who can throw a harpoon from a Sealskin on frame kayak has my utmost respect.

The long bow did take years to master. At one time Golf was outlawed in Scotland because it interfered with archery practice.

[stan]

Let's see...the atlatl was replaced by the longbow, and the longbow was replaced by the musket and the 9-iron.

It is amazing what you learn on this forum!

[daybrown]

Atlatl arrows dont havta be straight, they dont rub against a bow; gonzo easier to make a lot of them out of damn near anything. Its easy to carry both the atlatl and its arrow in one hand, on the run, and launch on the run, as well as carry a 2nd shot in the other hand.

But you dont wanna be in thick brush with an atlatl.However, for a quick shot, if the woods is not too thick, you can get a round off before you can draw a bow. then too, the accuracy would reside in the position in that last microsecond as the arrow is shot, whereas you cant maneuver a bow to adjust the aim if the target moves. But hitting anything up in a tree would be a bitch, easy with a bow.

[gunny]

Where in the Americas were the first "arrowheads" found-------and at what age?

[Minimalist]

Well, Stan....after a lot of looking I finally found this in TheFreeDictionary.com

Medieval archery
In medieval Europe, the value of archery on the battlefield steadily increased. The Mongols were extremely adept at archery on horseback, and used it to dominate the Asian steppes, and eastern Europe. Horse archers would shoot while approaching their target, then turn around in the saddle and shoot again after they passed.

By the Hundred Years' War, the English had become the world's best archers on foot, using an English longbow. Archers were drawn from the peasantry, and trained rigorously from childhood. Every boy was given a bow of his own height and was required to train with it. Tournaments were sponsored to encourage proficiency.

In combat, they would often shoot two arrows, one on a high trajectory, and one on a low trajectory. These two arrows would hit the enemy simultaneously from two different angles, making defense difficult. The advent of the bodkin point allowed arrows to pierce most armour.

The crossbow, while dating from classical times, became quite popular during the Middle Ages. While it took decades to train a longbow man, someone could become proficient with a crossbow with little training. The crossbow had about the same power and range as a longbow. Its major drawback was that it took a long time to reload. The armour piercing power of the crossbow caused fear amongst the well armoured nobility, and it was banned by the Second Council of the Lateran (at least between Christians), although to little avail.

The advent of firearms rendered bows obsolete in warfare. Although bows had a longer range and could shoot much more frequently than the earliest guns, guns could penetrate most armour and required minimal training. Later development gradually gave firearms advantages over bows in range, accuracy and eventually in reload time.

The term "Second String" derives from the fact that medieval archers would carry a second string in the event that their "first string" snapped.