The tool for throwing a spear is called an Atlatl and with one I can throw a hunting weight spear or dart about 80 yards. A good hunting spear weighs 4-8 ounces and so is 4-8 times as heavy as an arrow from a bow. Folks telling you how inferior the Atlatl is to a bow in penetration have likely seen the Atlatl used with too light a dart. Atlatl Bob Perkins Aluminum darts for instance weigh about 1.5 ounces and though they can be thrown a long weighs lack the momentum to act as a true dart.

This Atlatl and Dart system was a huge advance for mankind hastening the demise of Mammoths and neanderthals and planting us on top of the food chain. I can get pie plate groups at 15 yards and find that I can shoot about as well as I can with a bow at half the distance out to 20 yards. Past 20 yards I am decidedly useless.

1) From My Back Deck


2) Some Atlatls I use. The fanciest is by Bob Perkins the others are homemade and work as well or better.


3) In the air..the black smudge points to the airborn atlatl


4) I make broadheads out of L6 steel and 7mm Weatherby cases pinned with a finishing nail. They penetrate about as well as a buddies 60 pound compound bow and make a much wider wound channel.

Oops. The black arrow smudge of course points at an airborn dart not atlatl which is the name of the thrower.

Note the flex in the dart..the incredible mechanical advantage of a 27" forearm extension really adds some power to the throw.

Orangutang for a day.

Curious, why aren't the spears heavier? 8 oz seems very light....an NFL quarterback can throw a football close to 80 yards with his hand, I would think the atlatl could do better...never doubted they could hurt something though, even with a light spear. Don't know much about 'em truth be known.

Well if you think archery a 500 grain hunting arrow is 7x lighter than the 3500 grain dart.
At about 100-120 ft/sec the dart is about 1/3rd of the speed of an arrow from a compound bow. This means the dart has slightly less kinetic energy but over twice the momentum of an arrow.

I am sure the NFL quarterback could throw the dart a lot farther than I can (maybe even double). I am a decent shot-putter but have only an average throwing arm.

Seeing that obviously lethal dart arc out 80 yards is pretty impressive in real life.

Bear in mind too -- that our ancesters used flint arrowheads on their spears, and physically were much stronger of arm and back, with greater muscle and bone densities than most humans walking around today have.

And we've proven that anyone with a little skill can easily re-create those flint spearheads they used and found the cutting edges were MUCH sharper than any fine scalpel surgeons use today. I think the cutting edge of some flint spearheads were only a few microns across. Metal just can't get that sharp.

So, in old days, you've got prehistoric man with more muscles, throwing very likely much bigger spears than even 4 - 8 ounces, and using speartips several times sharper than medical scalpels.

I doubt if they were much heavier. The historical record gives us pretty solid evidence that was the used to recreate the "modern" atlatl. A light springy dart works really well, a heavy stiff dart not well at all.

The first recreation atlatls using heavy spears were so bad that folks couldn't understand why primitive man bothered. A heavy spear overpowers the atlatl while a light one really allows for an increase in release speed.

Even with my 100-120ft/sec toss the momentum of the 8oz dart is better than an arrow from the best compound bow. Given how easy it is to make this amazes me.

As for the question about the release point I am afraid I don't understand. The dart is thrown from the tip spur of the atlatl. The fingers keep the dart on at the throw beginning and then release the dart to allow the spur contact to guide it.

Indeed this is a very interesting way of hunting ... but I can imagine that given today´s alternatives, it would be practically impossible to recreate a realistic scenario that might give us an (somehow) approximate idea - saving the obvious differences - that our ancestors could have experienced.... but I would really like to practice it !!!

I have just remembered that I still have the javelin throwing record in my school, something that I achieved about twenty years ago, when I was seventeen years old ...

I've been playing around with a norsaq, with it I can throw a 750gram harpoon aprox 30 meters, while sitting down in a kayak. They were used up untill fairly recently in Greenland. Tomorrow I'll take some pictures and post them.

The atlatl was superior to the black powder weapons that Cortes had. The natives could easily have killed all the spaniards as their spears could have pierced the Spaniards suits of armor. I would imagine that a moose would be a good animal to try hunting with the atlatl. Also it seems the true mechanical advantage is gained through "wave dynamics" the dart behaves like a spring...it coils up and stores energy while you throw. The pics seem to support this theory.

thanks for sharing
The chef

Looks very similar to the Woomera that the Australian Aborigines use.
We got shown how to make and use them on our survival courses in the Army. Funniest thing you will ever see, a bunch of soldiers trying to use a stone age implement to hunt with.
Kept all the tribal elders laughing for days.
I never did get the hang of it.
The throwing sticks (not boomerangs), now they were a whole lot easier to use, and quicker to make.

Cheers, Dave.

Athletes can throw a javelin by hand around 90 metres (from memory). I used to do something around 50-60 metres (almost 70 yards) I think.

A woomera should theoretically extend this.

If we are talking about hunting, how far can one be thrown with enough force accurately is more the question.

I used to be able to hit a hay bale reasonably well (maybe 50%) with woomera and Aboriginal spear at about 40 metres.

I'm into atlatls also. Here are some of the links I have collected for those interested:

small video clip of throwing

World Atlatl Magazine

Atlatl Bob

Thunderbird Atlatl

Northern Plains Atlatl Assn

Flight toys

World Atlatl Assn

BTW, the World Record for long distance currently stands at 848.56 feet. This throw was made by Dave Ingvall of St. Joseph, Missouri, USA on 15 July 1995 in Aurora, Colorado. Dave used a carbon fibre atlatl with an aluminum dart of his own construction.

I'm not sure how the accuracy was, but that's a heck of a heave.