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posted by janrinok on Monday December 16 2019, @11:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-didn't-know-what-it-was-either dept.

Bows are more accurate, have greater range, and can fire more frequently than spears. They mostly replaced the spear. In many areas where thrown spears were used for a longer time, a lever known as an atlatl was use to add power to the throws. Some Canadian researchers reckon that if bow use, for example, was learned by children using child-sized bows and arrows, then spear use would be learned by children using child-sized spears and atlatls. Now they seem to have found archeological evidence of that in Par-Tee, Oregon, USA where they have uncovered small, child-sized whalebone atlatls.

The Par-Tee atlatls were made during what appear to have been the last few centuries of the widespread use of these weapons on the northern Oregon Coast; they were perhaps employed alongside the newly introduced bow and arrow. Their unusually high abundance at Par-Tee—they are more numerous here than at any other site on the west coast of North America—is difficult to explain. Most atlatls were probably made of wood, and therefore do not survive in most archaeological settings. Although the use of whalebone for atlatls at Par-Tee has facilitated their survival at this location, the reason for the repeated selection of bone for the crafting of these weapons is unknown. The choice to employ whalebone cannot be explained by differential access to this material alone, as bones from these animals could have been found whenever they washed ashore. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the use of whalebone improved the performance of atlatls compared to other types of locally available material. Perhaps this use of whalebone represents unique practices of marking status through the use of the body parts of truly powerful animals. Alternatively, this could have been a means of indicating close relations to, or high regard of, these animals among the inhabitants of Par-Tee, who appear to have sometimes hunted whales.

Source: Learning to use atlatls: equipment scaling and enskilment on the Oregon Coast.

Even just a few hundred years ago, archers had far more skill than the inept fumblings we are used to seeing. Archer Lars Andersen demonstrates archery on another level. (Direct link to Lars Anderson's YouTube page.) His major complaint is lack of strength, so the strength and skill training for that must have historically started in childhood. So why not similarly for spears?


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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:29AM

    by RamiK (1813) on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:29AM (#933101)

    As for lack of strength, that might be explained by his use of low poundage bows and partial draws, exactly what you would expect for a trick shooter.

    I don't know anything about archery, but looking at how inverted rows, scapular pulls, arch hangs and negatives are used to get into proper form pull ups and muscle ups let alone real gymnastics, I'm guessing there were probably dozens if not hundreds of "tricks" fitting into movement progressions involving partial range-of-motion and reduced leverages that took quite a bit of years, and preferably starting from a young age, to be mastered only by a few.

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