Invention Playlist 3: 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

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(02:10):
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,

(02:32):
But I mean put yourself as much as is possible
in the mindset of our prehistoric ancestors. You know, we're
you know, the 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

(02:52):
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.
And 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, you know, a park here in town. Um,

(03:16):
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 I'd been just blind to it. It completely blended

(03:36):
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

(03:56):
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 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,

(04:20):
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

(04:41):
gonna you know, depend you know, situationally, it's gonna 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? Yeah?
And there are some theories about, like the the ability

(05:03):
of endurance running in humans, that endurance running, 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 the

(05:24):
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 get in close range with

(05:44):
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, mean you're talking about either
being gored by the pointy end or or kicked by

(06:04):
the other end. And these can these can 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

(06:27):
adversary or even a you know, 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, this is being one of the rocks many
specialized rolls that we created for it. Um, you know,

(06:50):
and because we had 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. This beer. 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.

(07:10):
And uh. The thing is, when we're looking back at
at 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

(07:33):
the throwing spear. Right yeah, I mean, either way, we're
talking about 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

(07:55):
six to seven foot spear. But 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 or 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, that one spear

(08:19):
is probably not gonna 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

(08:40):
when you're getting into throne spears 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

(09:00):
fleeing again, leaving you 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.

(09:21):
You are, you are so limited just just by reach
and the spear that that is thrown as 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 in a 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

(09:43):
certainly for a primate, this is a new skill altogether. Uh.
And it's a but it's a pretty it's a pretty
old invention um the spiritself. When we try to date it.
While the remains of wooden spears have been found in Hanover, Germany,
the date back to four hundred thousand years ago, and
which talking between six and seven point five foot javelins

(10:03):
here UM. So the ideas that they would have been
thrown weapons. UH, the technology 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,

(10:24):
this wouldn't have been the work of of of modern
Homo sapiens. This would have been the work of Homo
heidelberg insis, which was an immediate process that predecessed their
to Homo sapiens. And UH. In terms of how these
spirit spears were composed, stone pointed spears date back at
least three hundred thousand years to Neanderthals and archaic Homo sapiens,

(10:48):
but five hundred thousand year old deposits at cathu Pan
in South Africa have 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

(11:09):
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 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

(11:30):
fighting context. But you're still somewhat limited in range there
because have you ever tried to throw a seven foot spear?
How far 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

(11:51):
you can with say a bow and arrow. Right, you
can go a lot farther and shoot a lot faster
uh with an arrow and an attention bow than you
can 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

(12:11):
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
because we're talking about utilizing them 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

(12:32):
a living animal. Uh, You're you're just throwing for distant sake.
But the the the record that I ran across was
one hundred and four point eighty meters or three hundred
and forty three feet nine and three four inches, And
this was a record set, an Olympic record set by
East Germany's Yui Hawn in four. And this is actually

(12:54):
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,
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.

(13:16):
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 say mammoth, and and again with the mind
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

(13:39):
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 real
even really going to get into military usage all that
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

(14:01):
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 a stag, not really you
don't really think about that being hunting tactic, right, Your
foalanx 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

(14:23):
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
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

(14:45):
about a projectile delivery system, one of the one of
the most beautiful early machines that humans put together, that
is commonly today known as the addleaddel. 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. Today's

(15:08):
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Easter seventh Central on a E T. Alright, we're back,
so it's time to talk about upgrading the spear by
upgrading the delivery mechanism of the spear. And this is

(17:18):
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 addleaddle. Uh So, the word addle ladle is

(17:41):
spelled a t l a t l. It comes from
the no 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,
was thinking, okay, like a game of darts. So something

(18:02):
that's like four inches long and hold in your hand.
Now this is going to be referring to a huge projectile. Yeah,
we're talking 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 for the
same tool. Uh. Apparently in Spanish it's known as the estolica,

(18:26):
and in French it's the propulsiur 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 the present day
by some that's called the new cock or the throwing board.

(18:49):
On this being the idea that it's it's essentially in
this case, 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. It's simple in
a way that hides the genius of this invention. And

(19:11):
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, this turns our relatively climate

(19:31):
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
ottole 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 updates the way that your

(19:54):
brain is processing the limits of your body and how
you use your body. So you know, if you use
a 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 lethality in the reach of your hand, right, and
that in a nutshell is what's going on here, is

(20:15):
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 have. Yes, if you've
ever seen one of these things that I think it's
mostly actually just for keeping the slobber off of your

(20:35):
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. Similar concept,

(20:56):
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

(21:17):
as you were when you were throwing at those puny
distances with your hand. Uh So, the same principles 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 anything

(21:42):
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 saw
eyes to maybe six ft or about one point eight

(22:02):
meters long on average, though they can be a good
bit longer or shorter. The average is about six or
seven ft. 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.

(22:23):
Though then again, 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,

(22:44):
or it 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 autoladdle 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. But also this is the kind of technology

(23:06):
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 bottle lott
of enthusiasts out there today. In addition to the people
who actually do still actively hunt with it, there are
a lot of people who just kind of play with

(23:28):
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 see some rather ornate looking ones that

(23:50):
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
you know they're some some wonderful examples of this for
the date back say seventeen thousand to thirteen thousand years ago, uh,
from modern day France, and like the example I was
looking at it, it looks like a deer perched atop

(24:13):
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 was
what it would have been, say, the odd a lottle
that you would put on the wall. The same way
that they're like, swords have a real function and they
were made for a real functional reason. But there are

(24:34):
plenty of just decorative swords that exist, you know, the
fancy one that you hang up over the mantel or
the hand acts 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 in our lives, it can be fetishized,

(24:58):
it can be it can be revere, it can be
even attributed with magical properties. Uh, and to the point
that it may not actually the physically used for the
thing that it was made to do anymore. Yeah, such
as like every sword sold at a rint festival as
an example, of this. There are tons of ways in
which tools and objects used to do work becomes symbolic.

(25:18):
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 incredibly powerful symbols. Yeah, you're

(25:39):
exactly right. But let's say it's not just for decoration.
You actually want to use it. And so you're out
hunting and you're in a warfare scenario, you're in a
hunting scenario, and so to use the addleaddle, what you
do is you hold the dark parallel to the launching
baton to the addle lazzel, so they're they're sitting basically
side by side, flat against each other, and you're gonna
hold them horizontal with the back end of the dart

(26:03):
knocked into the cup or the hook or the spur,
whatever it is that connects with the back of the dart,
with the dart 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
with the odd latal forward with the handle end, which
brings its length from its horizontal starting place through a
vertical arc. And then the back end of the dart,

(26:26):
of course, is pushed as it pivots on the spur
or the cop or the hook before the dart is
loose tot 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,
You're like bringing the launching device forward to launch the
projectile with the thing that extends out from your hand. Yeah,

(26:49):
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.
Or more specifically, though, it is a lever that extends
the length of the spear thrower's arm for greater momentum. Right,

(27:10):
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 a spear
with your hand? Well, the primary advantage of and we

(27:30):
can discuss some other possible advantages as well, but the
primary advantage of the audleaddle 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. So consider earlier,
we're talking about a modern javelin throwing record of what

(27:54):
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 when 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 loaddle
distance records, Uh, there's one set by Dave inga ball,

(28:17):
and he used a very modern take on the weapon,
a carbon fiber auto loaddel 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 loddel. The record is two hundred thirty

(28:38):
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 loadel 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 going from a

(28:59):
hand thrown speed or to a ladle 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
javelin throwing scenario where you're just going for distance, because
the hunting scenario, accuracy becomes important and also other qualities

(29:23):
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 um 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
laddile improves range by as much as fourfold, again stressing

(29:46):
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 ladle and getting it automatically.
This was has changed the way that you you utilize
the weapon. Yeah. Now I want to talk about some

(30:07):
characteristics of the use of the weapon, 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 autolattle throws and create a computer

(30:30):
model of auto ladle launching scenarios, and so among the
things he found was that the lever action of the
auto ladle 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,

(30:53):
that the auto ladil 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's a
different study. I found one by Whittaker, Pedigrew, and Grossmire
in uh Paleo America in se and what they found was, quote,

(31:15):
we measured numerous well practiced individuals using a variety of
auto leaddle equipment, comparing radar, gun, film, and chronograph measurements
of dart velocity. The auto leadle is used in hunting
and warfare probably did not accelerate darts much beyond thirty
five meters per second or seventy eight miles per hour,
so that that's uh, honing back in on somewhere close

(31:35):
to the you know, a 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 the point of

(31:56):
what you were talking about. With those pure distance measurements,
Ball found you could achieve distances of more than two
hundred meters easily. 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 auto
addles that have been found that have a weight in
the middle of the shaft called a banner stone, and

(32:19):
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 addle did not have
much effect on the speed of the dart. What did

(32:41):
have an effect on the speed of the dart was
the auto adds flexibility. If the shaft is flexible, 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 challenges of understanding the the

(33:01):
the addle addle. Uh, you know, what remains of the
ancient past do we have to to look at? You know,
when 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 test of time
and when we're but when we're lucky, we find wooden

(33:23):
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. You know,
all of this is enhanced with the addle addle because
it's a it's a complex mechanical tool, and for much

(33:46):
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 is specifically a lot of stuff
about like stone napping in the by faces and all that,
where you know, he just pointed out it's not always

(34:07):
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
long as stone tools do, and so it might be
in some degraded form. But just as a side note,

(34:30):
you mentioned the idea that UM for much of the world,
the odd laudel 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, I've read about the examples of some cultures
in Mesoamerica and in the Arctic who held onto the

(34:52):
spear thrower and even preferred it for some specialized uses
after the bow was introduced. So it might be in
interesting to look at what some of those reasons for
holding onto the auto ladle as a weapons propulsion technology
after the introduction of 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

(35:18):
American people's were using the auto lattle, 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 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,

(35:39):
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 tension stored
in the bow, but not necessarily better for every single case,
That's right. So I was looking at a blog the
Aztec Vault by William Anderson, which is which is really good?
I reckon meant it, uh, And he was, and he

(36:01):
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 have taken the bow
into their their military usage. But uh, as tech nobility

(36:23):
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 audle ladle was was on
the other hand, a revered weapon of the Aztec people,
And so the nobility didn't want anything to do with
the bow. The commoners, they would be the ones to

(36:45):
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 addle laddle. So yeah, the the elite
class would do the audo ladle, and commoners would use
the large bows as well as slings in combat. Anderson
writes quote. Hassig argues that the auto ladle was likely

(37:08):
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 shield during the charge,
Warriors likely through a salvo of four or five darts
that they carried loosely in their hand before they dropped
the auto ladle and switched to a melee weapon. And

(37:31):
by the way, I believe the melee weapon in question
would have been the obsidian edged Maquahital wooden sword club.
Hopefully everyone's seen an image of one of these, But
it is a just a terrific looking um kind of
a hybrid of sword and club. You know, it's it's
it's woulden'. It kind of looks like some sort of

(37:52):
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 so of the Aztecs rushing into battle
using the addle addle to hurl these these high powered
spears into the front ranks and then dropping the audle
addle all together and whipping out this sword. Uh. It's

(38:12):
a pretty pretty terrifying scenario. But to be clear, that
is the scholar Hassig's interpretation, right. He thinks probably happened.
There's a lot and has has has written extensively on
Aztec military and you know what 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

(38:33):
we don't know, and there's a lot we have to infer.
But it seems like the continued use of the Audle
addle among the Aztec people is a combination of sticking
with the weapon out of cultural tradition, uh, and and
with we should say, seemingly 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

(38:55):
was a matter of figuring out how to best utilize
it in the evolving face of attle alongside newer weapons,
like defining what an auto laddle can do that slings
and bows and arrows cannot achieve. Yeah, now I have
seen it site of other other reasons beyond just like
cultural attachment that people might have for preserving the use

(39:16):
of the addoladdle even after the introduction of the bow.
Like I was reading some reasons that have been cited
by the World Autoladdle Association, who point out, for example,
you can use the odd laddle with one hand like that. Yeah,
and if you're charging again, charging across the battlefield like that,
that makes sense, right, You have the you have your
your darts in one hand, the auto ladle in the

(39:37):
other and uh, and that's all you need, right, So
you've 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 arrows you would
shoot with the bow. And of course if you get
with a hit with a heavier projectile, it's gonna hurt
you more. And in the case of the Aztecs, it's

(39:59):
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 is that it is easier,
apparently on an auto loaddle to attach a line to

(40:20):
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 have something to do with the
like the weight of the line, right. Yeah. And so

(40:41):
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 of unwieldy, But when you watch practice through
overs with it, they look deadly accurate. Um. In fact,

(41:03):
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 audoladal his
whole life. This is just a guy who who picked
it up and started hunting with it in uh in Florida.
This was reported in by the Mississippi Clarion Ledger after
he had killed an alligator with an auto loto. Apparently

(41:24):
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 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,

(41:45):
I don't I don't know if I could hit one
with a rock basketball depends um and and a lot
of the evidence I found for this idea that you
could actually be very accurate with the autoladal. Like this
story was just sort of anecdotal report. It's but there
is apparently some empirical research on accuracy on the accuracy

(42:05):
of autolatile compared to say the bow. Uh. This one
summarized by Whittaker at all from that paper I mentioned earlier.
Quote accuracy is more easily achieved with a bow, although
a skilled adolad list can compete with an archer at
short ranges. So it seems like in general a bow
is more accurate, but if you practice enough, you can

(42:25):
get about as accurate with an autolatile at short range.
There just appears to be maybe a stronger learning curve
with the autolattle. 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

(42:46):
traverse that area where the auto lottle 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 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

(43:06):
something fearsome about the way that they're flying off of
these batons when 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

(43:31):
this you see in other cultures is, of course you
have a mounted archer. But there's no they wouldn't have
had horses in in Mensico 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

(43:51):
and place for its continued usage in a military scenario.
That's a good point. Now, there are other comparisons between
the bow and the auto addle that I was also
reading about, and whittaker at all from so uh the
authors here mentioned that first of all, an arrow does
travel faster than not a laddle, so it reaches its
target in less time, and it gives the target less

(44:12):
time to react and dodge out of the path of
the dard 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 ad alattle. I have seen images,

(44:33):
for example, of UM of one of the you pick
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

(44:53):
auto ladle throw, you probably want to be standing. Another
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 stealth 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

(45:15):
back on the other side. When you watch some of
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 dark
just sails silently until it pounds into its target and
then that's the first real noise you hear. But anyway,

(45:38):
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 autolt as effective and useful even after
the introduction of the bow. So I think on the

(45:59):
other end of the sectrum, while bows are faster and
more stealthy, auto ladles can launch heavier darts, and they
can be powerful in situations where saying a prey animal
is not aware of you, 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 auto laudl Look for your children's eyes

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(47:50):
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(48:10):
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(48:32):
Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright,
we're back. So how important was the Audle Audel 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, means of
acquiring necessary sustenance for for one's self and one's people. Um.

(48:56):
But in that that book, the seventy Great Avengers of
the Ancient World are brought by Brian and Fagan, he
points out that you know, our oldest examples, you know,
known examples of the auto load 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

(49:19):
meat that could prove vital, especially 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 in an important or even a cential
role in ensuring the survival of the species. Yeah, I
do think, uh, hunting of mega fauna was an important

(49:42):
part of Pleistocene survival. They've got 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 that
there they might be tough and they might be you know,
good at getting away from you. Yeah, so the auto
loddle was important. We already we already mentioned the uh,
you know, the various decorations that we see on some
of these remaining auto lattle and whether these were at

(50:05):
aldo that were you actually used or they're 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 at Loto lists. Uh.

(50:28):
One thing I've seen, at 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 an
auto loaddle on some darts pretty quickly. This would have
made far more sense in the movie Predator. Remember where

(50:49):
Arnold Swartzenegger's character what was his name dout where he
has the scene where he makes a giant bow 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 um,
and and then in later sort of you know films,

(51:11):
you know, lower budget films that were 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,

(51:36):
but you know, by the way was talking about like
the bow and arrow coming in into 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

(51:56):
cases definitely being in touch with other p foals that
used bows in 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 can get a
full episode out of it. Maybe we could. But the boomerang.
The boomerang is another range weapon of note, in one

(52:17):
with a very incomplete history. But we know it dates
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 we primarily associate this blunt ranged weapon with Australia,
but other parts of the world have produced artifacts that

(52:38):
are at least arguably possibly boomerangs. Uh. So, yeah, boomerang
technology another ranged weapon that we sometimes forget about. Now.
In addition to the cultures that have continued use of
the oddle autile 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 bulls doing this. Uh. There there are

(53:02):
also just tons of people who have taken up use
of the auto lattle 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, doesn't, you know,

(53:22):
sort of find the right ones. Uh. But there's also,
for instance, the World Autolatto Association. Uh you can find
them at World out a laddle dot org. Auto Lato.
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

(53:44):
that's World a t L a t l dot org.
And uh, they 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 autolatdal uh you know,
school children, scout groups, etcetera. Serious competitions among a lotto enthusiasts,

(54:04):
as well as classes about how to make and not
alto or use it UM. As far as I can tell, however,
there's no Atlanta based organization, which is a shame because
that would be what the Atlanta Audle Lattel 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

(54:25):
area you will, you'll you'll start it and uh invite
Joe and I to go check it out. I'm trying
to find the outcast. Joke in here is like the
people who remember of that organization or the Audle audele
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

(54:48):
stone age technology UH and particularly the hand acts. But
one of the areas we got into discussing him was like,
what is the connection between UM these two tools that
we're using and the way we're manipulating them and building
them and in the human mind. Oh yeah, uh Now
he was talking about some ideas about possible connections between

(55:10):
I think, uh, language modules in the brain and the
ways that we construct stone tools. They're also just interesting
things to think about. I was looking at a paper
um from Frontiers and Psychology 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

(55:32):
it is like a stone age human history and the
development of 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

(55:56):
just extending 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
audle 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

(56:16):
increase the power 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

(56:39):
here just 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 are our tools end up being metaphors

(56:59):
for our understanding of the world. So like the the
the the arrow itself, I mean, we think about like
the arrow of time. Um, you know, 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

(57:20):
about like the most fundamental technologies 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

(57:42):
like that, arrows and spears. Think about 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.

(58:03):
The Greek word is hamartia, which literally means to miss
the mark, as 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

(58:25):
out of nowhere, Like you don't see where it launched from.
It's just 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

(58:48):
here and I'm bleeding every time there's a new episode. Well,
think too about just how attractive the idea 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 are popular media. Like, think
of all the things that are popular right now, almost

(59:09):
all of them have a bow and arrow in them.
What do you mean, Game of thrownes 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

(59:31):
been going on for multiple seasons. Wait is it not
green lantern? No, no, there's green arrow. 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 bowl 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

(59:52):
the bow and arrows like, and the child wants to
try it out like they they say, see it and
they want to do it, like we have a connection.
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

(01:00:15):
are any superheroes that use auto laddels or indeed, is
there a scene in a film, uh that that actually
depicts Audle loddal use? 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, uh, pre
contact meso America or or you know, or more more
ancient people's But I am not recalling a good autolatdal

(01:00:38):
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 autoladdle whether you know, whether it's

(01:00:59):
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 ladle. 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 an auto lattle.
I'm just gonna may be off on that, but I'm
gonna just guess five people, and well we'll find out

(01:01:22):
in a future Listener Male episode if I'm accurate on that.
Here's something I'm curious about from people who have used
in a model 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?

(01:01:42):
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 loddle. Uh. Yeah, that's
a really fun one to look into, in part because
I feel like the audle addle is often kind of

(01:02:03):
you know, glossed over in our in our histories and
and you know, even in our museum sometimes. And and
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. Um and or hunting technologies.

(01:02:25):
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 ust do an entire episode on body armor and
how that has uh, where that originates, and how that
has h been implemented in different cultures around the world,
and and how it changes humanity. Robert and now we're

(01:02:47):
talking 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 that's the main website for the show. You can
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(01:03:10):
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(01:03:30):
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Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Mini Driver. And
on my podcast Many Questions, I put together a little experiment.
I ask trailblazers across different disciplines the same seven questions,

(01:04:57):
questions about the inflection points in their life, what they
like least about themselves, and what relationship has to find
love for them. This season, I'm coming back with new
trailed lasers, like Blondie vocalist Debbie Harry. I did have
a revelation. It was at CBGBUS. As a matter of fact,
I was waiting for the audience to give it to me,
give it me. Then I realized that I had to

(01:05:19):
make them. I had to command them artists and creative
Juggernaut Goldie and I walk up to the mountain on
high cop just being in that environment and seeing life
in death in front of you, right in front of you.
And I got there and scream and cry and and laugh,
and I find that being the happiest. And many more

(01:05:40):
join me as we continue this exploration on season two
of Many Questions on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.