The Atlatl Spear Thrower

The spear is a truly ancient human technology, but this preceded one of humanity’s oldest mechanical inventions: the atlatl or spear thrower. In this episode of Invention, Robert and Joe explore the history and physics of this amazing hunting device.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp and I'm
Joe Mccormickin today, we wanted to have a little discussion
about how certain types of weapons going way back into history,
and especially projectile weapons, changed the human animal. That's right,

(00:25):
But I mean put yourself as much as is possible
in the mindset of our prehistoric ancestors. You know, we're
you know there they were. They were scroungers, you know,
leveraging a large primate brain to forage sustenance from roots
and berries, uh, you know, from from the meat they
learned to catch, scavenge or steel from larger predators. And

(00:45):
key to all of this is distance. I think it's
easy to take this for granted, and especially those of
us who are removed from any kind of hunting tradition. Well,
I've got a story about this. Actually, for the first
time in my life, the other day, somehow I got
within like twenty feet of a deer. I was just
out walking my dog along a forest path here in town,

(01:06):
you know, a park here in town. Um, and uh
that I was completely blind to it. Suddenly the dog's
attention goes, you know, rigid, This whole body is just
full of electric tension, and his ears are up and
he's frozen, and I'm like, what's going on? And then
the deer bolts, and the deer had been, you know,
maybe less than twenty feet away from my body, and

(01:26):
I'd been just blind to it. It completely blended in
with the leaves and the trees and all that. But
what it actually made me realize is I never get
that close to a deer. Normally, at long distances away,
they hear you moving and they bolt. You don't get
anywhere that close to him. Yeah, And I mean, certainly
there are places where you can you can go where
the wildlife has been desensitized to human presence, such as

(01:49):
say you go to Yosemite National Park, you know, or
or where you go to the Grand Canyon, and you're
in some of those high tourist areas where the animals
are not in danger, and therefore you can get i'll
alarmingly close to say an enormous elk or a Grand
Canyon squirrel. Oh yeah, the Grand Canyon squirrel. Well, I
mean that highlights the other thing is if people have
been illicitly feeding these animals, which in general you shouldn't do. Yes, yeah,

(02:13):
do not feed the bears. But yeah, but I think
this this drives home that like, uh, during this time, uh,
you know, they're there are all these animals at large
in the world. But how many can you get close to?
How many can you get close to enough to potentially
kill in order to acquire their protein? Um, it's gonna,

(02:34):
you know, depend you know, situationally, it's going to depend
you know, is this an injured animal? Is this an
animal that was killed by another predator? But a lot
of it is going to come down to like human skill.
Uh can you can you stalk this creature? Can you
be stealthy enough to close the distance between yourself and
the protein? And there are some theories about like the

(02:55):
the ability of endurance running in humans, that endurance runing,
our ability at marathon ng and stuff is to compensate
for the fact that a short distances almost all prey
animals can outrun us. But that with a lot of them,
we can run for longer than they can, and after
they tire out and can't go anymore, we can finally
catch up with them. Yeah, It's it's kind of like

(03:16):
the terminator approach. But this is yeah, this is part
of our human hunting heritage, is that this was one
way we were like, well, I can't I can't out
battle the animal, I can't outrun it. But I can
be persistent and I can I can fix my mind
on it, and I can just never stop until it
wears out. But even then, if you're getting close range

(03:37):
with even a lot of prey animals, I mean not
to speak of predators who might be preying on us,
but say like a large bovid type animal, you know,
a bison or a or a large stag or a moose.
You get close to one of those things and it
can hurt you. Oh yeah, I mean you're talking about
either being gored by the point of end or or
kicked by the other end. And these can these can

(03:59):
be fatal blows or gores in either case. Uh. And
then yeah, the predators as well, like these are animals
that are far more adept at closing the distance between
their hunger and the shape of you know, a lowly
primate for example. Uh, A primate that you know, for
all its tricks of stone and stick and fire, is
still helpless against an adversary or even a you know,

(04:22):
like you said, a large prey animal if there is
no distance left and no technological advantage exactly. And then
we're talking about a time here when there were no
bows and arrows yet, so we had we had rocks
that could be thrown and uh, and this is being
one of of the rocks many specialized roles that we've
created for it, um, you know, and because we had

(04:43):
pretty dexterous hands, right uh. And we're pretty good at
throwing things, but there's only so much you can do
with a rock. And then of course there's the spear.
The spear. The spear is kind of a game changer,
right yeah. I mean the spear is it's a tree
that we've made into a horn, right or into an
antler or a great tooth um. And uh. The thing is,

(05:04):
when we're looking back at a prehistoric humans and even
their their predecessors, you know, these were things that were
already in use. The spear had had been in use
by these creatures and those that came before them for
hundreds of thousands of years um. And we should also,
I think make a distinction between the the thrusting spear,
which is used for stabbing and the throwing spear. Right, yeah,

(05:28):
I mean either way, we're talking about an incredible piece
of technology because it enables them to hunt prey and
defend against predators that their ancestors could have rarely engaged.
Uh and um, you know there were there were limits
either way. So if you're using it as a thrusting tool, uh,
you know, it's it's still pretty impressive, right because you're
talking about say a six to seven foot spear, But

(05:50):
then you still have the big distance problem about getting
close to a prey animal that might be dangerous or
just impossible because it's outrunning you. Right, Yeah, So six
to seven feet you can you know, thrusting it, you're
adding to the length of that spear essentially. But unless
you are just super lucky or just or skillful beyond words,

(06:11):
that one spear is probably not going to be enough
to do it, or you're gonna miss or you're gonna
hit the wrong spot. So you know, you're gonna have
to depend on all these other bits of primate trickery
at your disposal. You're gonna have to depend on the
stealth numbers, some sort of strategy. Um, you know, multiple
spear thrusters and even then you're awfully close to a
dangerous animal. And even when you're getting into throne spears,

(06:35):
you know, essentially a javelin, even then you're there are
limits to to the range and you're still going to
be faced with a similar situation. You still have to
get you have to close the distance enough to utilize
the weapon, and then you need to be able to
close the deal without the creature fleeing again, leaving you

(06:55):
in the dust and perhaps being picked off by some
other predator that's more skillful than you, that can take
advantage of the wounded. Yeah, that's all right. But even
given all of these limitations, we shouldn't underestimate the power
of the spirit. It's sort of changed what kind of
predator we are thinking about before projectile weapons. You are,
you are so limited just just by reach, and the

(07:18):
spear that that is thrown is a kind of revolutionary
update of the body schema. You know, it's it's like,
you know, it's a tooth that leaves the body. Yeah,
which is you know, sort of the you know, you
see that kind of advancement sometimes in the in the
in the biological world. But yeah, for the moment, for
certainly for a primate. This is a new skill altogether. UH.

(07:39):
And it's a but it's a pretty it's a pretty
old invention. UM the spirit itself when we try to
date it. While the remains of wooden spears have been
found in Hanover, Germany that date back to four hundred
thousand years ago, and we're talking between six and seven
point five foot javelins here, UM, so the idea is
that they would have been thrown weapons. UH. The technology

(08:02):
UM is even older, though the weapons don't always survive UM.
For instance, they fossilized rhinoceros shoulder blade UM was found
in Box Grove, England, and it had a projectile wound
in it, and that's been dated to about five hundred
thousand years ago. And this, incidentally, this wouldn't have been
the work of of of modern Homo sapiens. This would

(08:22):
have been the work of Homo heidelberg insis, which was
an immediate process that predecessed there to Homo sapiens. And UH.
In terms of how these spirlit spears were composed, stone
pointed spears date back at least three hundred thousand years
to Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens but five hundred thousand
year old deposits at cathu Pan in South Africa have

(08:47):
presented evidence of their use among Homo heidelberg insis. So again,
the spear is ultimately more ancient than even our species. Now,
the idea of a weapon that you can throw, especially
like a spear that you can throw, that's sort of
an upgrade on just throwing a rock or even throwing
like a byface. So you know, like the hand axes
that we've talked about, um, that you might have been

(09:08):
able to create a sharp edge on, and we don't
know exactly what those were always for. We don't know
that they were necessarily thrown weapons. Um. But but throwing
a spear is definitely an upgrade. I mean that that
adds a new dimension of lethality to to the reach
of your body in a hunting or fighting context. But
you're still somewhat limited in range there, because have you
ever tried to throw a seven foot spear? How far

(09:31):
can you throw it? I mean, I've thrown a broom before,
but it's hardly the same thing. Uh Well, I mean
you probably know intuitively that you're not going to achieve
the same kind of range. Uh and speed of throw
with a with a hand thrown spear that you can
with say a bow and arrow, right, and you can
go a lot farther and shoot a lot faster, uh,
with an arrow and an attention bow than you can

(09:53):
just trying to hurl a rod out of your hand. Right.
And we'll get into some of the comparative ranges as
we proceed here. But uh, in terms of just looking
at a throne spear, you have to take into account
the math of range and accuracy. Right, Um, But consider
the modern Olympic record for javelin throwing, which we might
consider sort of the peak of distant spear throwing technology

(10:16):
because we're talking about utilizing him in the cases you know,
modern designs, modern materials, and also this is generally a
situation where one is is not trying to take down
a living animal. Uh, You're you're just throwing for distance sake.
But the the the record that I ran across was
one hundred and four point eighty meters or three hundred

(10:37):
and forty three feet nine and three four inches. And
this was a record set, an Olympic record set by
East Germany's Yui Han in En four. And this is
actually a throw that forced a redesign in an Olympic
javelins to keep them within the safe confines of the field. Um.
As such, he's the only Olympic javelin thrower to break
the hundred meter barrier. But as we're saying this, uh,

(11:00):
this is something that is a modern situation, brought about
by the fact of modern design and materials of this
javelin and the fact that he's purely going for distance.
This is not an attempt to hit something and wound
it with accuracy. Right, Yeah, there's a difference between say,
hitting the broadside of a barn and then hitting the
broadside of Satan mammoth, and and again with the mind

(11:21):
of not only hitting it and saying, hey, look how
great I am at throwing a javelin. No, you're you're
not great at throwing a javelin in the prehistoric context
unless you and those working with you can bring the
animal down, because ultimately it's all about survival. But again,
the spear was a game changer and it was around
for a long time. I mean, we're we're not really
even really going to get into military usage all that

(11:43):
much in this episode, but um, you know, we should
note that the spear would remain, would become and remain
a standard in military conflict for thousands of years, especially
when used in a phalanx, you know, a close formation
of troops that all have spears. But then again, you're
not gonna be able to use that really to to
you know, go bring down of stag. Not really, you
don't really think about that being hunting tactic, right, Your

(12:04):
falanx doesn't really keep up with the stag. But again,
the spear was a major technology, was a game changer,
and it remained in use for a very long time.
But at some point a new range weapon uh came
on the scene, and that was, of course the bow
and arrow. Right. And you might think, okay, well, there's
just like the next step, right, you go from throwing
a spear with your hand to the bow and arrow

(12:25):
and there's nothing in between, right, Uh. When that is
not true. That's the that that is the whole reason
we're doing this episode is to talk about the technology
that comes between these advancements. That's right. We are talking
about a projectile delivery system, one of the one of
the most beautiful early machines that humans put together that

(12:46):
is commonly today known as the addle adele. Alright, on
that note, we're gonna take a quick break, but when
we come back, we are going to discuss the spear
throwing technology. Alright, we're back, so it's time to talk
about upgrading the spear by upgrading the delivery mechanism of

(13:07):
the spear. And this is before you get to the
bow and arrow. This is after the hand thrown spear,
before the bow and arrow. There's this weapon that comes
along in human techno history. Uh and it's not nearly
as well known as the bow, obviously, but it is
nevertheless one of the most world changing and longest use
technologies in human history. And this weapon is the audleladdle. Uh. So,

(13:30):
the word addle lattle is spelled a t l a
t l. It comes from the n waddle language of
the Aztec. But it's it's just that's just one regional
variant of the name. More generally, this technology is sometimes
known as the spear thrower or the dart thrower. Though
don't let the word dart give you the wrong idea there.
When I first read dart thrower, I was thinking, okay,

(13:51):
like a game of darts. So something that's like four
inches long and hold in your hand now that this
is going to be referring to a huge projectile. Yeah,
we're talking a something that you would look at and
classify as a very large arrow or a or a
or even just a spear, like a spear with fletching
sort of. So there are other words and other languages

(14:11):
for the same tool. Uh. Apparently in Spanish it's known
as the estolica, and in French it's the propulsire. The
English transliterations, I think of the common Australian terms for
it are are woomera or miru. I was reading that
there's a version used by some of the you pick
people of Alaska, mostly for hunting seals. Reportedly even to

(14:34):
the present day by some that's called the new cock
or the throwing board. On this being the idea that
it's it's essentially in this case of I mean it's
kind of board shaped. Yeah, not the dart itself, but
the throwing device, the the the equivalent of the addle addle,
which we're going to be focusing on today. So what
is this thing if you've never seen one in action? Well,
in some ways, it looks so simple, it's deceptively simple.

(14:57):
It's simple in a way that hides the gene use
of this invention, and I would argue that it's one
of our earliest biological augmentations, ways of sort of upgrading
the human body, almost in a kind of video game,
since like sort of the first steps towards cyborg dum.
One example, of course, of this type of bioaugmentation would
be something like wearing animal skins as clothes. You know,

(15:20):
this turns our relatively climate sensitive bodies into technological hybrids,
like as if we had fur and extra layers of
skin to help us keep warm and protect us from
the weather. And the addle Lottele is like this, except
instead of upgrading our epidermist. It's a similar type of
upgrade for the spear throwing human arm. Yeah, I mean,
like any tool use upgrades the body schema, like it

(15:42):
updates the way that your brain is processing the limits
of your body and how you use your body. So
you know, if you use a you have a sharpened
uh stick in your hand, you have a sword in
your hand, well, your that is an extension of your arm. Yeah,
it's an increased like the lethalid in the reach of
your hand, right, and that in a nutshell is what's

(16:03):
going on here is increasing the length of the throwing arm.
Uh Well, one bit of technology that that it's I
think it's sort of comparable to, is the tennis ball
thrower that dog enthusiast and dog owners sometimes have. Yes,
if you've ever seen one of these things that I
think it's mostly actually just for keeping the slobber off

(16:25):
of your helps you pick it up to so it's
like a little scoop that you know, if your your
dog brings the tennis ball back to you, it's covered
in in drool and you pick it up in this
scoop and then you whip the scoop out overhand and
throw the ball. And it also helps you get distance
on the because I don't have one that's for dogs,
but I have one um that that is for for children,

(16:46):
similar concept. I guess where the child out by throwing
it farther so that but it's like a whistle ball,
like one of these like nerf whistleball things. And I
was it's really super fun because you can just really
hurl this thing like like like crazy like far, you know,
far greater distance than you could by just trying to
throw it like a mini football. But how does that happen.
Your arm didn't get any stronger. You're just as strong

(17:07):
as you were when you were throwing at those puny
distances with your hand. Uh So, the same principle is
at play in the addle addle. So the invention has
two primary parts. One is the dart, which we were
talking about a minute ago. It looks sort of like
a huge arrow. It's going to be usually a wooden
shaft with a sharpened point at its tip, either like
a stone spearhead or just a sharpened wooden tip in

(17:32):
anything sharp and puncturing. And then on the back it's
going to have fletchings. So I think these feather fins
that you would see on the back of an arrow,
and those are for aerodynamic stabilization. They help it fly straight.
If you've never seen a dart like this, basically just
picture something that is like an arrow, but spear sized,
maybe six feet or about one point eight meters long

(17:53):
on average, though they can be a good bit longer
or shorter. The average is about six or seven feet.
Then you've got the launching device, the auto laddle itself,
which is a baton that is used to throw the dart,
and this is usually going to be in the range
of about one and a half to two ft long,
or about fifty to sixty centimeters roughly. Though then again,

(18:14):
you know, like the dart, this can be a good
bit longer or shorter. Uh so, So picture something kind
of like a two ft baton. It's got a grip
handle on one end and on the other end some
type of component that couples with the back end of
the dart. And this can be a cup shaped depression
that the back of the dart sits in, or it

(18:34):
can be kind of a simple hook that the back
of the dart catches in, or sometimes it's actually inverted
where the back of the auto laddle has a spur
that locks into a groove or depression on the rear
end of the dart. Does that make sense. Yeah, we'll
try and have at least one image of this on
the landing page for this episode at invention pot dot com.

(18:55):
But also, this is the kind of technology that a
lot of you have probably had the privilege of seeing
in either in a museum when when it's available, or
at least a recreation of it, or various YouTube videos
where people have recreated them. Yeah, you can look up
all kinds of There are tons of attle lott of
enthusiasts out there today. In addition to the people who
actually do still actively hunt with it, there are a

(19:17):
lot of people who just kind of play with them recreationally, right,
and the addle lotto itself, taking into account both modern
and ancient variations, it can often look just very utilitarian,
like like clearly a stick that you know it is
for uh, you know, for for launching a spear, you know,
not not a lot more than that. But you also

(19:38):
see some rather ornate looking ones that really look like
a scepter. You can sort of tell that they have
some sort of a functionality, like they're like, clearly there's
some sort of purpose for its shape. But uh, you know,
there's some some wonderful examples of this for the you know,
date back say seventeen thousand to thirteen thousand years ago, uh,
for modern day France, and the example I was looking

(20:01):
at it, it looks like a deer perched atop a stick.
And there are these added birds as well. And in
some of these cases these maybe these may be nonfunctional
versions of the add a lottle. This is what it
would have been, say the odd a lottle that you
would put on the wall the same way that they are. Like,
swords have a real function and they were made for

(20:23):
a real functional reason. But there are plenty of just
decorative swords that exists, you know, the fancy one that
you hang up over the mantel or the hand ax
is another example of this. They're like there's some examples
of the hand ACKs that that may have been hard
to say in many cases, but may have been purely decorative.
But that gets into this weird relationship we have with
our technology, right we When technology plays an important role

(20:45):
in our lives, it can be fetishized, it can be
it can be revered, it can be even attributed with
magical properties. Uh and to the point that it may
not actually be physically used for the thing that it
was made to do anymore, such a like every sword
sold at a rint festival as an example of this.
There are tons of ways in which tools and objects

(21:06):
used to do work becomes symbolic. And because they become symbolic,
I mean they're they're hugely evocative things. Think of the
hammer and sickle symbolizing like work and plenty and you
know all that, or the sword and shield on medieval
heraldry or whatever. That's just like showing strength and power,
and you know so, um so the tools themselves become

(21:28):
incredibly powerful symbols. Yeah, you're exactly right, But let's say
it's not just for decoration. You actually want to use it.
So you're out hunting and you're in a warfare scenario.
You're in a hunting scenario, and so to use the addolazzle,
what you do is you hold the dart parallel to
the launching baton to the addolzzle, so they're they're sitting
basically side by side, flat against each other, and you're

(21:49):
gonna hold them horizontal with the back end of the
dart knocked into the cup or the hook or the
spur whatever it is that connects with the back of
the dart, with the art pointing forward, so you're gonna
be holding it up over your shoulder, pointing forward towards
your target. And when you've aimed at your target, you
sort of whipped the odd lattal forward with the handle end,

(22:10):
which brings its length from its horizontal starting place through
a vertical arc. And then the back end of the dart,
of course, is pushed as it pivots on the spur
or the copp or the hook before the dart is
loose at the top of the arc and then flies
free toward its target. So you can think of the
motion a little bit not exactly the same, but a
little bit sort of like an overhand tennis stroke, right,

(22:32):
You're like bringing the launching device forward to launch the
projectile with the thing that extends out from your hand. Yeah,
Or if you think in other way, is if you
think of it of the of just like you know,
this overhand throw of a spear, it's like you have
mechanically recreated the arm and the spear. Again, it's kind
of a mechanical projectile hurling arm brandished by a human arm.

(22:55):
Or more specifically, though, it is a lever that extends
the length of the spear thrower's arm for a fight
or momentum. Right, it makes your arm longer, and it
gives you another joint in your arm. So instead of
just shoulder, elbow and wrist to pivot and whip along
to deliver that that momentum, you essentially get a second forearm.
And so so why is this better than just throwing

(23:17):
a spear with your hand? Well, the primary advantage of
and we can discuss some other possible advantages as well,
but the primary advantage of the auto ladle over the
hand thrown spear is that it flies a good deal faster,
which increases the range of flight and the force of
the impact and the depth of penetration when it hits
its target. Yeah, so let's let's talk some numbers again.

(23:39):
So consider earlier, we're talking about a modern javelin throwing
record of what a hundred and four point eighty meters
or three hundred forty three feet in nine and three
fourth snitches. Now again with all the caveats right, that's
like a modern javelin and like and you're not aiming
at an accuracy target. You're just throwing as far as
you can exactly. Now, springboarding off of that, looking at
modern modern auto laddle distance records, Uh, there's one set

(24:05):
by Dave inga ball and he used a very modern
take on the weapon, a carbon fiber auto ladle and
an aluminum dart and he hurled it two hundred and
fifty eight point sixty four meters or eight hundred forty
eight point fifty six feet. Another record that our researcher
Scott brought up was using a wooden auto loddele. The

(24:27):
record is two hundred thirty point forty eight meters or
seven hundred fifty six ft and this was set by
Ilka Continajo from Finland using a like a birch auto
loadele UH and UH a wooden dart. But in either case, though,
I think it's pretty safe to say that we're talking
about a technology that effectively doubles the throwing range, from

(24:49):
going from a hand thrown spear to an auto laddle
thrown spear. Yeah, and so that automatically tells you something.
If just you're going for distance and you can go
more than twice as far as you can hand throwing it, Now,
the hunting scenario is going to be somewhat different than
the javel and throwing scenario where you're just going for distance.
Because the hunting scenario, accuracy becomes important and also other

(25:12):
qualities that we might not think about as much, just
like power and accuracy. Also, stealth becomes important in most
hunting scenarios. However, when you take into account UH, you
know the hunting scenario. For instance, Brian and Fagan in
seventy great inventions of the Ancient World, a book that
I have referenced before on the show. He writes that
the audle ladil improves range by as much as fourfold,

(25:35):
again stressing that you know, accuracy would come with practice. Yeah,
that's essential in all of this. It's not a like
like any piece of you know, of ancient technology, Like
a great deal of skill needed to be involved. You
couldn't go from just you know, being an experienced spear
thrower to picking up an auto laddel and getting it automatically.
This would this change the way that you you utilize
the weapon. Yeah, Now I want to talk about some

(25:58):
characteristics of the use of the upen, like weighing some
of these pros and cons about its mechanics. One thing
I was reading was a report about a two thousand
three physics paper by Richard A. Ball, which was called
the Dynamics of Spear Throwing in the American Journal of Physics.
And in this case he used high speed video to
analyze the characteristics of auto ladle throws and create a

(26:20):
computer model of auto ladal launching scenarios and so. Among
the things he found was that the lever action of
the autolattle allows regular throws to achieve speeds of more
than a hundred kilometers per hour. And I wonder about
this if this is a conservative or low end estimate,
because elsewhere I've seen it claimed pretty regularly but without citation,

(26:43):
that the auto lad will allows throws more in the
range of a hundred miles per hour, which is more
like a hundred and sixty kilometers per hour, which is
a good bit faster. But then again, to bring support
back to the lower end of the speed measurements, there
was a different study. I found one by Whittaker, Pedigrew,
and Grossmeire in uh Paleo America in seen and what

(27:04):
they found was, quote, we measured numerous well practiced individuals
using a variety of auto LTDAL equipment, comparing radar, gun, film,
and chronograph measurements of dart velocity. The auto ladle is
used in hunting and warfare probably did not accelerate darts
much beyond thirty five ms per second or seventy eight
miles per hour. So that that's uh honing back in

(27:25):
on somewhere close to the you know, hundred kilometers per
hour a little bit more, um, but that's nothing to
sniff at. You get hit by a six foot dart
at seventy eight miles per hour, and that's that's brutal. Yeah,
that's still gonna pierce the skin. That's still gonna pierce
the hide. That's still gonna you know, work towards getting
you where you want to go and bringing down a
large animal. Yeah, and uh, to the point, more to

(27:46):
the point of what you were talking about. With those
pure distance measurements, Ball found you could achieve distances of
more than two hundred meters easily. Uh, the distance will
probably be a lot shorter again if you're going for
hunting accuracy. Now, here's something interesting that is sort of
an archaeological mystery that's been going on for a while.
There are some audle addles that have been found that
have a weight in the middle of the shaft called

(28:07):
a banner stone, and archaeologists have debated what the purpose
of this stone was. Some people thought it was decorative,
some thought it actually provided a benefit to the throw,
maybe that by increasing the weight of the auto addle
it would allow you to throw harder. But Bob found
with his model that increasing the weight of the auto

(28:27):
addle did not have much effect on the speed of
the dart. What did have an effect on the speed
of the dart was the auto addles flexibility. If the
shaft is flexible, it it can increase the speed of
the throw by up to fifteen percent. This sort of
makes sense to me, almost like adding a bit of
the bow flex propulsion into the throw. So this is
probably a good place to mention that archaeology the archaeological

(28:49):
challenges of understanding the the the auto addle. Uh, you know,
what remains of the ancient past do we have to
to look at? You know, when we we we end
up looking at things like stone weapon tips, which which
generally preserved very well, mysterious stones such as the banner stone.
You know, they're they're they're going to uh stand the

(29:10):
test of time and when we're but when we're lucky,
we find wooden remains that say, give us an idea
of how long archaic humans have been crafting spears. But
it's really easy to lose track of simple tools, and
especially when they're made out of out of wood that
just simply doesn't last. And it's a challenge then to
figure try and figure out how they played into ancient traditions. Uh.

(29:31):
You know, all of this is enhanced with the addleaddle
because it's a it's a complex mechanical tool, and for
much of the world it was abandoned prior to recorded history,
So in many of these cases there are no traditions
of the weapon passed on. Yeah, we talked about this
in our episode with Dietrich Stout where we were looking
at stone age technology as specifically a lot of stuff
about like stone napping in the by faces and all that,

(29:54):
where you know, he just pointed out it's not always
easy to tell what an ancient tool was used for.
You can often find a stone that appears to have
been modified in some way, but what was it for?
I don't know. Then you have to you have to
start making a lot of inferences. Even worse the case
when you've got wooden tools that don't necessarily last as

(30:14):
long as stone tools do, and so it might be
in some degraded form. But just as a side note,
you mentioned the idea that um for much of the world,
the addleaddle was abandoned prior to recorded history, and that
is true in many cultures. But while the spear thrower
was often abandoned by cultures after they acquired the bow
and arrow, it wasn't always there were some cultures. For instance,

(30:37):
I've read about the examples of some cultures in Mesoamerica
and in the Arctic who held onto the spear thrower
and even preferred it for some specialized uses after the
bow was introduced. So it might be interesting to look
at what some of those reasons for holding onto the
autoladdle as a weapons propulsion technology after the introduction of

(30:58):
the bow might be. So I was inspired by this question,
and I was looking around, particularly as it regards the
Aztec people and basically meso American people's were using the
auto loadel. But then the bow was introduced by various
northern tribes that invaded Mexico from the north, and the
twelfth and thirteenth century ce UH several different tribal groups

(31:21):
that were referred to um by some of the meso
American peoples as being barbarians, which I guess is you know,
often the case, right, those that invade you from outside
are considered the barbarians, even in this case when they're
bringing with them a more advanced ranged weapon, right because
of the tensions stored in the bow, but not necessarily
better for every single case, that's right. So I was

(31:45):
looking at a blog the Aztec Vault by William Anderson,
which is which is really good? I recommend it U
And he was and he was referring to the work
of anthropologist Ross Hassig and pointed out that that even
that even you know, in the in the wake of
the bow, uh, the the Aztec people then, uh, you know,
are are rising up in power and they have they

(32:07):
have taken the bow into their their military usage. But uh,
as tech nobility still considered the bow a barbaric weapon
and unbecoming of their use. But because it was believed
to be introduced by people's who were perceived as enemies. Yeah,
and then also just you know, the auto ladle was was,
on the other hand, a revered weapon of the Aztec people,

(32:30):
And so the nobility didn't want anything to do with
the bow. The commoners they would be the ones to
utilize the bow and arrow in their military campaigns. Uh.
And you know, so they were they were all about
embracing the use of the bow and arrow, but personally
they were never going to use them. They were going
to use the auto laddle. So yeah, the the elite
class would do the auto ladle and commoners would use

(32:50):
the large bows as well as slings in combat. Anderson
writes quote Hassig argues that the addo ladle was likely
used during the initial charge at the very beginning of
an engagement. It had less range than the bow, but
had far more power behind the projectile and was therefore
more likely to penetrate armor or a shield. During the charge,

(33:12):
warriors likely through a salvo of four or five darts
that they carried loosely in their hand before they dropped
the autoladdle and switched to a melee weapon. And by
the way, I believe the melee weapon in question would
have been the obsidian edged Maquahitle wooden sword club. Hopefully
everyone's seen an image of one of these. But it

(33:33):
is a just a terrific looking um kind of a
hybrid of sword and club. You know, it's it's it's wooden.
It kind of looks like some sort of like an
ancient chainsaw. It's a brewer looking weapon. Uh uh so, yeah,
I'm just imagining the you know, the elite soldier class
of the Aztecs rushing into battle using the autoladdle to

(33:54):
hurl these these high powered spears into the front ranks
and then dropping the auto addle all together and whipping
out this sword. Uh. It's a pretty pretty terrifying scenario.
But to be clear, that is the scholar Hassig's interpretation.
He thinks probably happen. There's a lot and has has
has written extensively on Aztec military and you know what

(34:16):
their tactics seem to have been. But with all things
regarding um, you know, pre contact meso America. Uh, you know,
there's a lot we don't know, and there's a lot
that we have to infer. But it seems like the
continued use of the auto ladle among the Aztec people
is a combination of sticking with the weapon out of
cultural tradition, uh, and and with we should say, seemingly

(34:37):
fewer centuries to abandon it outright, you know, like the
culture still had some charge left in it, right, but
also figuring out you know, it was a matter of
figuring out how to best utilize it in the evolving
face of battle alongside newer weapons, like defining what auto
ladle can do that slings and bows and arrows cannot achieve. Yeah, Uh,

(34:58):
now I have seen it. I did other other reasons
beyond just like cultural attachment that people might have for
preserving the use of the ottolattle even after the introduction
of the bow. Like I was reading some reasons that
have been cited by the World Auto Lttle Association, who
point out, for example, you can use the odd laddle
with one hand like that. Yeah, and if you're charging again,

(35:20):
charging across the battlefield like that, that makes sense, right,
you have the you have your your darts in one hand,
the auto ltto on the other and uh, and that's
all you need, right, So you got that. Another thing
is that it could propel very heavy projectiles delivering more momentum. Uh.
You know, you're comparing like this dart that's more like
a spear on the odd laddle versus the typically smaller

(35:42):
arrows you would shoot with the bow. And of course
if you get with a hit with a heavier projectile,
it's going to hurt you more. And in the case
of the Aztecs, it's worth pointing out that like their
adversaries would have had armor, they were not unarmored people.
It was like fiber based, but it was still protection
against these various weapons that were employed. Yeah, that's a
good point. Uh. And then another interesting reason they said

(36:04):
is that it is easier, apparently on an auto loaddle
to attach a line to the dart for like reeling
back of harpoons. So if you're out trying to harpoon
seals or something like that, it might be easier to
use an auto loaddle than a bow, in which case
the line could maybe get in the way of shooting.
I'm I'm assuming that's the reason. And it also might

(36:27):
have something to do with the like the weight of
the line, right, yeah. Yeah. And so one one more
thing that I think is interesting is the question of
how accurate you can be with an autoladdle, Because on
one hand, it seems intuitive to me that not a
lottle would be hard to use, like it would be
hard to get it to aim right, It seems kind

(36:47):
of unwieldy. But when you watch practice throwers with it,
they look deadly accurate. Um. In fact, I was just
reading about I was just reading an anecdotal report of
this one guy who was you know, this is not
somebody who's been using an autoladal his whole life. This
is just a guy who who picked it up and
started hunting with it in uh In, Florida. This was

(37:09):
reported in by the Mississippi Clarion Ledger after he had
killed an alligator with an autolto. Apparently this is like
a really interesting story, but one part that stuck out
to me was that the the guy who did it,
his name was Ryan gil He said he was shocked
how accurate the weapon was once he tried it, reporting
that he found he could pretty easily hit soda cans

(37:29):
at ten yards or about nine point one meters soda cans.
I mean that's I don't know if I could hit
those with a bow and arrow. I don't I don't
know if I coul hit one with a rock depends
um and and a lot of the evidence I found
for this idea that you could actually be very accurate
with the auto ladle, Like this story was just sort
of anecdotal reports, but there is apparently some empirical research

(37:53):
on accuracy on the accuracy of autoladile compared to say
the bow. Uh. This one some arized by Whittaker at
all from the paper I mentioned earlier. Quote accuracy is
more easily achieved with a bow, although a skilled adoladolist
can compete with an archer at short ranges. So it
seems like in general, a bow is more accurate, but

(38:14):
if you practice enough, you can get about as accurate
with an autolattle at short range. There just appears to
be maybe a stronger learning curve with the autolatdle. So
to go back to the Aztec scenario, like again, this
seems like the perfect usage for it because those those
elite soldiers rushing in, they have to close that distance
anyway they have to. They're having to traverse that area

(38:38):
where the addolttle could be used. And again it's a
one handed weapon, so that's like the perfect domain for
its use. But also pointing out that you know this
could also have you know, also there's perhaps a shock
element to it as well, you know it's coming. Maybe
it's kind of a terror weapon. This is the weapon
of the ADS tech elite. Yeah, I can just picture
it in my mind. I mean, there is something fearsome
about the way that they're flying off these batons. When

(39:01):
you when you hurl it, and you know, the rotation
of the body is you do, it's a it is
a a menacing movement, let's say. And I you know,
I didn't look and I didn't read any research on this,
but it also comes to mind that if you want
to close the distance with a ranged weapon. Um. I
mean the more traditional version of this you see in

(39:22):
other cultures is, of course you have a mounted archer.
But there's no they wouldn't have had horses in in
Menico America pre contact, so that you know, the the
Aztecs were not using horses in battle. They were they
were all on foot. And so again another reason perhaps
the auto loaddle was again like this was the perfect
place for its use, the perfect time and place for

(39:42):
its continued usage in the military scenario. That's a good point. Now,
there are other comparisons between the bow and the auto
loaddle that I was also reading about in Whittaker at
all from so uh the authors here mentioned that first
of all, an arrow does travel faster than at a ladle,
so it reaches its target in less time, and it
gives the target less time to react and dodge out

(40:04):
of the path of the dart or arrow. So that's
a pretty clear bow advantage. You close the distance faster
and there's less time to react. Um. Also, you can
fire a bow from all kinds of positions, sitting, crouch,
standing on top of a horse. While it's more difficult
to do that with an auto lattle. I have seen images,
for example, of um of one of the you Pick

(40:26):
Seal hunters who's gotten auto ladle out in a in
a boat and he seems to be in a sitting position.
I don't know if he would sort of stand up
or get up on his knees to hurl it, but
he's holding it as if he's ready to throw, and
he's sitting in the boat. But it is generally true
that to get the best kind of leverage on the
auto ladle throw, you probably want to be standing. Another

(40:47):
point in comparison is that shooting a bow requires less
movement of the body as a whole, which means it's
less likely to alert prey. You're moving less, you're making
less sound. Yeah, you're gonna be a lot more stealthy
and against health is going to be is going to
be a key factor in any of these hunting scenarios
for sure. Though then again, I will say to come
back on the other side. When you watch some of

(41:07):
these skilled autolatalists using the weapon, one thing that's very
striking about it is how quiet it is. There's just
kind of this wolf of the of the you know,
if you hear the stick at all, and the dart
just sails silently until it pounds into its target, and
then that's the first real noise you hear. But anyway,

(41:28):
so the authors mentioned quote, these factors could be important
for individual hunting of alert prey and in warfare. However,
variations in hunting tactics such as hunting in groups and
driving prey into approachable positions, as well as tactics in warfare,
could have kept autoladdles effective and useful even after the
introduction of the bow. So I think on the other

(41:49):
end of the spectrum. While bows are faster and more stealthy,
autoladdles can launch heavier darts, and they can be powerful
in situations where say, a prey animal is not aware
or a few or is cornered or surrounded or something.
All right, we're gonna take one more break, and when
we come back, we're going to discuss the legacy of
the audle laddle. Alright, we're back. So how important was

(42:18):
the auto laddel in human history? Well, you know, I
feel like we've we've we've driven home already that we're
talking about a means of hunting. So it's a means
of survival, a means of acquiring necessary sustenance for for
one's self and one's people. Um. But in that that book,
the seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient World are brought

(42:38):
by Brian and Fagan. He points out that you know,
our oldest examples, you know, known examples of the autol
will take us back to the Ice Age when humans
would have used them on wild horses and reindeer. And
so the technology, if it improves your odds of landing
such prey, this is meat that could prove vital, especially

(42:58):
if if cured in autumn for the long winter months ahead.
So you know, you could I think you could make
a case for, like, Yeah, any technological advancement in acquiring
protein during this time, you know, could have played you know,
an important or even essential role in ensuring the survival
of the species. Yeah. I do think, uh, hunting of
megafauna was an important part of Pleistocene survival. They've got

(43:22):
a lot of meat on them, but they're also very
often they're dangerous to get close to, and they're hard
to kill. And there they might be tough, and they
might be you know, good at getting away from you. Yeah,
so the auto ladle was important. We already we already
mentioned the uh, you know, the various decorations that we
see on some of these remaining auto ladle and whether
these were autolattle that were you actually used or they're

(43:44):
purely decorative. Either way, they show that it was a
revered item, that it held an important role in their
culture at the time. That clearly does seem to be
the case with some of these highly decorated ones. On
the other hand, an interesting thing I've seen when when
you watch some of these, like uh say wild hunting
a lot of lists. Uh. One thing I've seen, at

(44:06):
least pointed out by a couple of them, is that
it's not that hard to make one of these in
the field. I mean you can. You can not even
have to take your weapon with you. You go out
into the field and you find the right trees, and
you can make yourself a not a lottle on some
darts pretty quickly. This would have made far more sense
in the movie Predator. Remember where Arnold Schwarzenegger's character what

(44:28):
was his name, where he has the scene where he
makes a giant makes it makes a high power bow
and arrow out of just stuff he finds in the jungle,
which I don't I don't know. I'm sure somebody has
sort of mythbusted this to some extent, but it always
seemed unlikely, and and and and then in later so
you know films, you know, lower budget films that were

(44:49):
inspired by this, you often see characters creating even crappier
looking bows and arrows out of out of the stuff
they find in the woods. Whereas, yeah, if he if
Dutch had made a not a lottle and he's that
to battle the predator, Uh, then that would have been awesome.
Why I wish that had happened. I fully agree we
should petition them to go back and make the movie
again fix this problem. Yes, um, but you know, by

(45:13):
the way it was talking about like the bow and
arrow coming in and to what extent it replaced the
audle laddle Um not not everyone jumped on the bow
and arrow bandwagon. Uh. Fagan also points out that Australian
Aborigines never took up the bow and arrow. Uh. They
stuck with other arranged weapon techniques, despite in some cases

(45:34):
definitely being in touch with other people's that used bows
and arrows, such as the Tories Straight Islanders. Um, speaking
of Australia, another ranged weapon. I'm gonna throw this in
because I don't know that we could get a full
episode out of it. Maybe we could. But the boomerang,
the boomerang is another range weapon of note, in one
with a very incomplete history. But we know it dates

(45:57):
back at least ten thousand years. That's the oldest evidence
we found. But as a wooden weapon, you know, very
few archaeological examples present themselves. And uh and by the way,
but we primarily associate this blunt ranged weapon with Australia,
but other parts of the world have produced artifacts that
are at least arguably possibly boomerangs. Uh so, yeah, boomerang

(46:20):
technology another ranged weapon that we sometimes forget about. Now.
In addition to the cultures that have continued use of
the oddle attle into the present day for hunting, such
as the example of some of the you pick people,
as we mentioned, and I think I've read about some people, uh,
some indigenous Australian people's doing this. Uh. There there are
also just tons of people who have taken up use

(46:41):
of the audle lottle recreationally. It's something that has I
think gotten I don't know that it seems to have
been a surge in interest in in this in the
past few decades. Oh yeah, again, there are lots of
YouTube videos, and I definitely recommend anyone who's interested in
seeing one of these actions to check out a few.
Make sure you check out a few, does you know,
sort of find the ones um. But there's also, for instance,

(47:03):
the World Autolto Association. Uh you can find them at
World out a laddle dot org aut Alado. By the way,
if you're not aware from the title of the episode,
if you haven't seen it in print, uh, it is
a t L A t L. I think I might
have said that earlier, but if I didn't, just just
in case, we're gonna drive that home. So that's World
a t l a t l dot org. And they

(47:24):
highly they track events and projects across the United States
and parts of Europe. Uh. So we're talking about just
you know, casual throws, you know, a chance to to
try out on auto ladle uh you know, school children,
scout groups, etcetera. Serious competitions among a lot of enthusiasts,
as well as classes about how to make and not
a loto or use it. UM as far as I

(47:46):
can tell. However, there's no Atlanta based organization, which is
a shame because that would be what the Atlanta Autolatdal
Association a t l A t l A t l Uh.
But hey, maybe it's out there and I just didn't
find it. Or maybe maybe you listening out there in
the Atlanta area you will, you'll you'll start it and
uh invite Joe and I to go check it out.

(48:07):
I'm trying to find the outcast. Joke in here is
like the people who remember of that organization or the
Audle Audle a t Aliens. That could work, That could work. Now,
we mentioned Dietrich Stout earlier, who we interviewed on Stuff
to Blow Your Mind the other podcast about about about
stone age technology, uh and particularly the hand acts. But

(48:30):
one of the areas we got into discussing him was like,
what is the connection between um, these tools that we're
using and the way we're manipulating them and building them
and uh in the human mind? Oh yeah, Now, he
was talking about some ideas about possible connections between I think, uh,
the language modules in the brain and the ways that

(48:51):
we construct stone tools. They're also just interesting things to
think about. I was looking at a paper um from
Frontiers and Sidecology in eighteen that's just charting a connection
between the development of different types of weapons technology across
the human history. You know, a lot of it is
like a stone Age human history and the development of

(49:13):
different levels of causal cognition in humans, meaning like you know,
showing that we understand causes and effects beyond our immediate
moment and physical body projected across space and time into
the future. And it's interesting to think about, like the
different weapons technologies coming along over time, always just extending

(49:34):
farther and farther out in time and space from the body.
So you've got first, like you know, thrusting spears that
extend the reach of the body, and then throwing spears
that extend it further, and then the addle addel which
extends it even further, but also adds in these abstract
elements of sort of inanimate causal understanding, like you understand
that the lever in your hand will increase the power

(49:54):
of the throw even though the spear is no longer
in your hand when that happens. And then of course
you've got ideas about like stored energy and the tension
of a bow and then even beyond that, ideas that
go beyond beyond the present moment, by say, using poisoned
arrow tips, you know, that's extending the causality of the
weapon further into time. And basically the authors here just

(50:16):
point out that, you know, this further and further and
further extension away in time and space from the physical body, uh,
mirrors the timeline of development of all these technologies. And
so I thought that was kind of interesting, interesting, And
then of course we also have to think about the
name of it makes me think too about how our
our tools end up being metaphors for our understanding of

(50:37):
the world. So like the the the arrow itself, I mean,
we think about like the arrow of time, um, you know,
to to what extent of these various technologies end up
allowing us, giving us the sort of the the metaphorical
fodder to then have these more complex thoughts about how
the world works. This is something that comes up a
lot on this show about like the most fundamental technologies

(51:00):
end up becoming so much more than technology. They become
the shapes with which we envision abstract elements of our lives,
you know, like the the wheel becoming so much more
than just a transportation technology that it's like one of
our most fruitful metaphors in all of language. And arrows
are another thing like that, arrows and spears. Think about

(51:21):
how much there's this, uh, the the idea of missing
the mark or being on target, you know, like with
an arrow or spear. You're you're talking about trying to
hit your target at arranged distance. I think about how
in the theological domain, I believe the word in Greek
that's like used for sin in Christianity. The Greek word
is hamartia, which literally means to miss the mark, as

(51:43):
if like you know, like your spear does not connect
with its target. I know that this reminds me of
the episode we did about Cupid's arrow for stuff to
blow your mind, and uh, you know, you think about
what it is to be hit with an arrow, or
to see one hit with an arrow. It is for
this physical attack to come perhaps even out of nowhere,
like you don't see where it launched from. It's just

(52:05):
like the arrow appears lodged in the individual. The wound
just happens, which is you know, probably you know, it
seems seems close to the metaphor that's being made for
being struck by love? Is that? Like, I don't know
where it came from, but now it's here, and I'm
bleeding the new tagline of this podcast. Now it's here,
and I'm bleeding every time there's a new episode. Well,

(52:27):
the thing too about just how attractive the idea of
of certainly the bow and arrow, but then perhaps to
some extent, the spear, but mostly the bow and arrow.
How we keep coming back to that in our not
only our stories and our myths, but our popular media. Like,
think of all the things that are popular right now,
almost all of them have a bow and arrow in them.

(52:49):
A Game of Thrones full of bows and arrows, and
even spear throws, ridiculous spear throws. They have no basis
on physics. Um, but then you look at say the
Marvel movies, you have an archer in in there as well.
I forgot about that. What Hawkeye? The DC World they
have a green arrow and that's been going on for

(53:10):
multiple seasons. Wait is it not green lantern? No, No,
there's green arrow. Oh there's both of them. Yeah, they
got two green people, they do, and green arrow has
is actually archery based, and they're like supporting characters that
also have bow and arrows. So and even just like
you know, you, like you bring a child to a
Renaissance festival, they do the thing where they're shooting the
bow and arrows like, and the child wants to try

(53:32):
it out like they they say, see it and they
want to do it like we have a connection. As
if there isn't some sort of an innate connection that
we have with these technologies. Man if Marvel thinks it's
a superpower to be able to shoot a bow and arrow, good,
imagine what they would have thought of, like an army
of archers. These are all superheroes. I wonder if there

(53:52):
are any superheroes that use aut of lodels or indeed,
is there a scene in a film, uh that that
actually depicts a little loaddle you? Perhaps I'm forgetting one. Um.
I know there have been, you know there there have
been some notable films that deal with you know, pre
contact meso America or or you know, we're more more
ancient people's But I am not recalling a good autolatal

(54:14):
scene offhand. Yeah, I mean, I don't say this to
glorify violence, but as far as a like a mechanical invention,
it is a beautiful weapon. So if you if you
know of any examples of this, please right in and
let us know. I would love to know what movie
I need to check out to see hopefully an accurate
depiction of how an auto ladle is used, or hey,
have you used an autolattle, whether you know, whether it's

(54:36):
like a part of your cultural heritage, or whether you
just experimented with one. We'd like to hear about that. Oh,
I know, I know some listeners out there have used
an auto lottle. In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and
I'm gonna guess. I'm gonna guess that we hear from.
I'm gonna say five people who have used on autoladle.
I'm just gonna may be off on that, but I'm
gonna just guess five people, and well we'll find out

(54:59):
in a future listening episode if I'm accurate on that.
Here's something I'm curious about from people who have used
in ludel attle. What was the experience of accuracy like,
especially when compared to your intuitions before using it for
the first time. Was it easier than you would have
expected to hit your target to hit your target with it,
or was it harder than you would have expected, right,

(55:19):
and then can you compare it to other arranged weapon
uses like, for instance, have had you used a bow before,
and how would you compare it to the experience of
using a bow or the experience of throwing a spear, um,
you know, outright without any kind of mechanical aid. So
there you have it, the audle addle. Uh. Yeah, that's
a really fun one to look into, in part because
I feel like the audle addle is often kind of

(55:40):
you know, glossed over in our in our histories and
and you know, even in our museum sometimes. And in
part of that too is you know that we have
not historically had that great of an understanding of what
these were and how they were utilized. Um. But hey, yeah,
it's always fun to discuss what we can't help but
discuss military technologies along the way, uh, and or hunting technologies,

(56:02):
you know, weapons. So I it does make me wonder
what other weapons would you like to hear us cover
on invention? Or how about armor? Would you like to
hear us do an entire episode on body armor and
how that has uh, where that originates, and how that
has been implemented in different cultures? Around the world and
and how it changes humanity. Robert and I were talking

(56:24):
about armor before we came in today. I think that's
a good candidate coming up. All right, Well, if you
want to check out more episodes of Invention, you can
head on over to invention pod dot com. That's the
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(56:47):
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(57:08):
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