How to Construct an Ancient Atlatls Spear Thrower

At some point near the base of your family tree, your ancestors relied on a variety of means to bring down prey for roasting over the family fire.

Many times, the desired prey was often far too large and too dangerous to hunt with a simple spear. It was also thousands of years before the advent of the bow and arrow.

So how did our ancestors capture their prey in between these two weapons systems?

The answer comes in the form of an advanced throwing spear system known as an atlatl.

It was a complicated system to learn and master but enabled our much smaller ancestors to take down prey far bigger than anything we would tackle today.

You can learn this system too, and you can begin with the primitive atlatl build on the next page.

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13 Comments

  1. David Adams said:

    Make and then take down prey? Why not just make them slow, or immobile? Or already cooked?

  2. John Beale said:

    should you want the skill practice now. Atlatls are trickier to make well than they look and take some practice to use but easily have the potential to take a deer at 10 to 20 yards if your practiced.

  3. Jerin Poliskey said:

    We have bow and arrow sets, old fashioned. I also grew up throwing an atalatle (sp?). I love learning this stuff and we all need practice.

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