Like Great-Great-Great-(Etc.)-Grandpa Did It

Friends of the MAA Ray Madden, Ron Mertz, and John Whittaker were interviewed for this New York Times story.

Here is a sequence I took  to illustrate dart flex for my How to Kill a Mastodon talk at Ignite Ann Arbor:

This great video by Pascal Chavaux really shows how much a dart flexes:

Nice shot! Nice hat!

For Immediate Release

Jim Gilligan
Michigan Atlatl Association

Chelsea Youth Tops World With Prehistoric Spearthrower

Chelsea, Michigan - 20/3/2010 - Harold Eyster, 15, of Chelsea finished the 2009 atlatl season ranked number 1 in the Youth Division of the World Atlatl Association.

      Atlatls are ancient weapons that preceded the bow and arrow in most parts of the world and are one of humankind's first mechanical inventions. The word atlatl (pronounced at-latal or atal-atal) comes from the Nahuatl language of the Aztec, who were still using them when encountered by the Spanish in the 1500s. Other words include spear-thrower, estolica (Spanish), propulseur (French), speerschleuder (German) and woomera or miru (English versions of the most common Australian terms).

      An atlatl is essentially a stick with a handle on one end and a hook or socket that engages a light spear or “dart” on the other. The flipping motion of the atlatl propels a light spear much faster and farther than it could be thrown by hand alone. In the area now know as Michigan Paleo people used the atlatl to hunt Mastodons and other Megafauna.

      Harold Eyster will be defending his title as World Atlatl Association Youth Champion starting at the atlatl contests to be held on April 11 at the Chelsea Rod & Gun Club, Chelsea, Michigan.

      The Michigan Atlatl Association will be hosting these contests in conjunction with the Michigan Flintknappers Spring Gathering at Chelsea Rod & Gun.

      The Michigan Atlatl Association is an educational organization dedicated to teaching about the ancient atlatl.

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“Erie Ice Daze,”

Saturday, January 16 and Sunday, January 17 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, Marshlands Museum and Nature Center. Winter is only “bad” if you don’t do something “good” with it. Join us in a two-day celebration of good winter fun which combines traditional outdoor activities such as dog sledding, snowsnaking, and atlatl throwing with some comfortable inside crafting, carving demonstrations and live dulcimer music performed by the Silver Strings Dulcimer Society.

..and some Knappers....

What Invasive Species Are Trying to Tell Us

Walking snakeheads, carnivorous snails, and the superpredator from the reef: The invasion has begun.
—By Julia Whitty

January/February 2009

Les Gibson takes me out to teach me how to hunt, which is what he calls fishing. Despite the fact that every public beach in Queensland, Australia, has been periodically closed this season due to blooms of box jellyfish, and despite the fearsome saltwater crocodiles living here, Les strides confidently into the bay with a pair of 10-foot-long bamboo spears and his wooden woomera, the multipurpose Aboriginal atlatl, or spear-thrower.

Read the rest of the story on the Mother Jones website here.

© Justin Smith / Wikimedia Commons, CC-By-SA-3.0

Giant Bison Vertebra with Atlatl Point. Cherokee, Oklahoma 4,000 - 3,500 B.C.
Donated by James M. Royer of Roseville, CA

View in large format at WikiCommons here.

Phil and Diane presented the program, "Primitive
Tools and the Early Americans" for the Crossroads
Group of the Sierra Club at the Brighton District
Library last month.

Click on the article in the photo section to the
right to see a larger format copy.

Photo courtesy of WikiCommons.

Note throwing board and compound dart lashed to kayak.