Main Discussion Area > Primitive Skills
Hand thrown spear better than the Atlatl?
Zuma:
Interesting.
I am not sure if Montezuma and the Aztecs had atatls
or not. Although they did use spears as did all warring
folks up until the first world war. Still used in a lot of jungle areas.
There are many pre Colombian atatls found throughout Central America.
The Alaskan natives used atatls well into historic times.
Masai warriors have killed full grown male lions with thrusting and
throwing spears in historic times. Although steel tipped.
I threw the javelin on the high school track team.
Had fun but wouldn't want to make a living with either weapon.
Zuma
half eye:
John,
Not trying to be a smart ass but I believe you are comparing two completely different types of weapons.....at least as employed by Native Americans. The Atlatl is a projecting weapon and a spear (not a javelin) is a thrusting weapon. While the one acts much like an arrow in projecting the lethal point from stand-off distance, the other is/was used to inflict large wounds; repeatedly, and at close range.
An example would be the great lakes tribes who regularly hunted both Moose and Buffalo, and they were not horse cultures. They did so by being smart. One way was to run or heard these animals into deep snow fields where they foundered and the hunters could run up beside them on snowshoes and stab repeatedly, then run on to another. Another way was to drive them into water where hunters in canoes could paddle up to the swimming animal and again stab repeatedly. The system is very similar when buffalo were run over a "jump" and then finished off at the bottom. The spear is the enduring weapon while the atlatl was replaced by the bow.....even the Inues' harpoons (and throwing stcks) are still like spears more than atlatl's and used because you cant get within arms length of whales or walrus etc. and so the harpoon head requires a very short throw distance for the harpoon head to be delivered, but the killing lance is hand held.
Survival and subsistence hunting has nothing in common whith white guys sport hunting. One requires the dead animal without injury to the hunter, we do it for sport and invent reasoning and rational for "how to do it".
Sorry for "droning on" just wished to point out that the atlatl, spear, javelin, and lance are all different weapons so I do not believe one can be compared to the other without being taken in context of their intended purpose.
rich
Pappy:
Very well stated rich :) loved that. ;) Also when you do something ,what ever it may be every day to survive you can get pretty good at it. Unlike us get out once a week for fun. :)
Pappy
John32r:
Half Eye what you are suggesting is that Native Americans were living fundamentally at the level of Neanderthals, hunting with handheld thrusting spears using natural traps such as the one at Tabun, Israel, where Neanderthals drove gazelle and speared them 105,000 years ago.
This "bread and butter" of hunting sustencence was never replaced or substituted for with any cultural advancements, be they the atlatl, the bow and arrow, or the boleadoras (which totally supplanted the bow in Patagonia in 1860). Any cultural or technological differences between Neanderthals/Denisovans and Indians and North Eurasian hunters are therefore totally superficial.
John32r:
--- Quote from: Pappy on December 04, 2015, 04:22:33 am ---Very well stated rich :) loved that. ;) Also when you do something ,what ever it may be every day to survive you can get pretty good at it. Unlike us get out once a week for fun. :)
Pappy
--- End quote ---
What about the aboriginal Australians? Their maximum hunting range with the atlatl/woomera was at best 20 yards.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version