11 January 2007
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Pingback by Pennsylvania: Hunt. Fish. Shoot. » Atlatl Comments — 11 April 2007 @ 10:35 AM
Bob’s page.
Obviously, I don’t agree with him about the bow and arrow. At least, not completely. It is true that the appearance of warfare does come with the emergence of the first means of hurting people with little chance of them hurting you back (the bow and arrow), but hunting with a bow is still hunting, and still binds an economy fundamentally to what the landbase can provide. Yes, bows have been used by agricultural societies, but they’re also used by Bushmen in the Kalahari, by Amazonian horticulturalists, and so on. Just like the atlatl, it’s been used by humans on every continent except Antarctica.
Of course, that takes nothing away from the atlatl, which is a fascinating tool in its own right, and one I hope to one day progress to using. We’ve started down a dual road this year with regards to hunting and tools: we’ll be buying our first bows next week, and at the same time we’re picking up archery, we’re also going to be teaching ourselves primitive bowmaking. I’ll tell you more about that once there’s more to tell, but for now, enjoy Bob’s video on the atlatl; even when I don’t agree with him he’s still a blast to watch.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 11 January 2007 @ 10:53 PM
I’m curious about your comment concerning warfare possibly starting with the ability to hurt others without getting hurt back, say by using long-ranger weapons. I know this is silly but after watching the movie, Shaka Zulu, I was impressed to see that some groups of Africans went to war and danced more than fought. They would stand at about 50 yards from each other and throw spears at one another. The “winner” would be a mutual decision as to who performed the best and would actually get “spoils of war” from the other side. Shaka changed all this when he basically started killing the other side directly. It’s also interesting to note that this happened during English colonial invasion. New memes being introduced perhaps? I haven’t researched the validity of this movie though it seems reasonable. There isn’t much benefit in the long run to having regular wars where people are maimed and killed unless there is a great surplus of humans, which usually defines a civilization (city builders with food surplus stocked and guarded). Basically, I can’t see warfare starting with boys and atlatls. I propose it started with humans being able to think “I am from this tribe, you are not. You have something I want and I will take it from you because you are not a part of me and thus not important”. Tribes that think something along those lines go to war. Tribes that don’t think that way don’t regardless of weaponry.
Comment by SF — 12 January 2007 @ 11:48 AM
My boss made an atlatl and has loaned it to me, so I’ve been practicing a bit. It’s not hard, but it’s not easy, either! And if you practice too long, your arm will hurt like crazy the next day.
We’re also organizing a bowmaking workshop here in the next few weeks, but I’m having a hard time lining up a guide. The student interest is definitely there, though, which is great.
Comment by raku — 12 January 2007 @ 11:54 AM
War began there, but it obviously didn’t end there. Many civilizations eventually moved towards warror elites, since heavy shock melee troops could be far more effective in battle, but could take a whole lifetime to train. Shaka’s Zulu empire was quite civilized, of course. Slaughtering your enemies, or engaging in full-blown battle, is a waste of resources, and life, if you know you have no chance. You can see similar behavior in escalating shows of defiance in animals, without any actual fight taking place, or even in feudal Japanese confrontations where swords are not actually drawn, but merely stances are compared, with all the consequences of a real life-or-death duel, save the death, exacted for it.
The problem with your theory is that all tribes think like that, but not all of them go to war. Bows can shoot farther than the atlatl, though with less force. This meant that people with bows could hurt each other without being hurt, eliminating the need to preserve one’s own self, such as developed among, say, Japanese samurai. This s why the bow was so important to the beginnings of warfare.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2007 @ 11:57 AM
Roxy, maybe you should get in touch with somebody from Primitive Archer magazine?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2007 @ 11:58 AM
It seems that when the appropriate mental patterns were in place for war the only thing afterwards that changed was scale. The bow, the atlatl, the gun, the machine gun, the nuclear warhead were simply new devices (some with non-human killing uses) to kill a larger population of humans in response to their being more humans. It’s almost like the idea proposed by Quinn and others that an increase in food production leads to an increase in population. I’d say an increase in population leads to an increase in technologies for destroying that population where warfare is concerned. The mind lead and the tools followed.
Comment by SF — 12 January 2007 @ 2:56 PM
I couldn’t disagree more. The tools lead, and the mind followed. The bow was almost certainly not invented as a weapon of war; it was almost certainly a weapon for hunting. But, once it existed, it meant that archers could hurt other people from sufficient distances that they themselves would be in little danger. It was the tool that made the idea of war conceivable.
We can see this in the more modern tools you mention, though of course the concepts of war and violence had already been introduced. The gun developed as simply a very long range bow, but it was only after its introduction that the full implications of the new tool were reflected in new mental innovations: new strategies, new tactics, and new approaches to war. The American Civil War was so bloody because they were still applying Napoleonic tactics in an era with mechanized, industrialized weaponry. Something very similar can be seen again in World War I.
This is the fundamental assumption of materialism. Tools have unexpected consequences, and that opens up possibilities previously unconsidered, so it’s the tool that leads, and the mind that follows.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2007 @ 3:03 PM
Cool video about the dynamics of how an atlatl works.
Obviously the bow and arrow thing was quite silly. The Atlatl is like a tank compared to the bow and arrow. You need an atlatl to take out mammoths. But in brush, against a deer… an Atlatl is too big. The range of a bow and arrow may be longer than an atlatl (where did you read that?) but the accuracy goes way way down. The arrow is not a good warfare weapon because of distance, it’s good because it’s much more compact. A quiver of Atlatl darts would make a warrior quite sluggish. At a primitive skills gathering I went to last year, there was a atlatl/bow and arrow range. Almost all of the Atlatl throwers had much better accuracy than the folks who were shooting arrows. This doesn’t really prove anything, but it was an interesting observation that I will continue to wonder about.
If your going to talk about a tool were we “went wrong,” I would suggest the hoe, used for tilling soil and farming, not the bow and arrow. Perhaps the horse and plow would be more appropriate. That the bow and arrow was used as a weapon in warfare, would only have come after populations were artificially inflated through agricultural means.
I may be wrong. Just my 2 cents.
Comment by Urban Scout — 12 January 2007 @ 3:31 PM
Huh, looks like you’re right … a bow is typically something on the order of 40 meters, while an atlatl is more like 100 meters.
How much difference do you think there really is between a hoe and a good old fashioned digging stick? Anthropologists sometimes call horticulture “hoe agriculture,” as opposed to “plow agriculture,” so I’d be more inclined to identify that as where we “went wrong.”
Of course, you can’t really pin it on any one technology; it was falling into the food race, and getting locked into a positive feedback loop of ever-increasing complexity that got us to where we are today. Still, these are interesting and somewhat important discussions to have.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2007 @ 3:42 PM
Here’s to digging sticks!
“getting locked into a positive feedback loop of ever-increasing complexity”
Yeah. Tell me about it. I’m reading The Art of Tracking: the Origin of Science… Pretty crazy shit. He’s making a really good case. Going all the way through hominid evolution and subsistance techniques that would require speculative tracking (hypotheses), as well as the geological locations tracking could have developed, etc. It’s a really good book. Worth the $50. I’ve spent all day logging quotes from it into my computer. Expect a blog about it soon!
Comment by Urban Scout — 12 January 2007 @ 6:00 PM
By the way, thanks for that recommendation on IshCon. I put in an order the next day, and it arrived earlier this week. Looks like an incredible book, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I will soon, though.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 12 January 2007 @ 6:25 PM
Thanks, Jason. Our problem now is not so much finding the guide as it is negotiating the date/time/cost/tools between the guide and the college… Where the hell does “bowmaking” fit in your average college metrics and measures??
What I might end up doing is making it an outside gig altogether - no rules that way!
Comment by raku — 12 January 2007 @ 6:34 PM
I read the bow and arrow was invented in the Aurignacian period 25,000 years ago. I’ve seen cave art in France dated to 15,000 years ago depicting bowmen shooting deer. I don’t believe the bow and arrow should be associated with agriculture and civilization considering it was in wide use before they even existed.
We can certainly live lives in balance with nature with the B&A as we did in the past. The Alaska Natives had used the bow for at least 5,000 years before white civilization imposed itself upon them, and they never created any sort of taxes, agriculture, or empire.
Comment by Andy — 12 January 2007 @ 10:46 PM
That was interesting about the spring component to the atlatl. I hadn’t thought about that before. About the accuracy of atlatl vs. bow/arrow, I would think that it might be easier to learn accuracy with the more “natural” motion of throwing, as opposed to the bow?
Anybody know the source of the music in the clip? I’m pretty sure I’ve heard something like it before, maybe here?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8B8y-KL52w
Comment by Willy Lee — 12 January 2007 @ 10:51 PM
I would have thought that the bow & arrow’s advantage would be its precision, especially in tight places… shooting an arrow allows you to essentially launch a blade straight down your line of vision. But then, while I have done plenty of archery in my life I have never even seen an atlatl, so maybe I’m talking out my arse.
Comment by Paula — 13 January 2007 @ 1:58 PM
The greater range of the atlatl makes sense. You’re using strong leg & core muscles - acting over a long lever (from foot to extended hand) - to transfer the momentum of your body into both propelling and compressing the spring/dart. That, versus stationary arm & shoulder muscles deflecting a bow.
Comment by JCamasto — 13 January 2007 @ 9:40 PM
Yes, when hunting large herd animals, that graze out in the open, such as Buffalo, Mastadons, etc, you’ll need something large, fast, and can travel great distances. Who wants to be near a mastadon right? In thick brush or a forest, a bow and arrow is going to rock more, since you’ll need to be closer and have less range of motion.
Comment by Urban Scout — 14 January 2007 @ 3:59 AM
Is there a scaled down atlatl for confining spaces, lighter duty, shorter ranges? Something that flys with only a snap of torso & arm?
Comment by JCamasto — 14 January 2007 @ 3:44 PM
“Is there a scaled down atlatl for confining spaces, lighter duty, shorter ranges? Something that flys with only a snap of torso & arm?”
Yes. It’s called “The Spear.” Haha.
Comment by Urban Scout — 14 January 2007 @ 3:50 PM
“Just like the atlatl, it’s been used by humans on every continent except Antarctica”
Hmmm, I can’t recall ever seeing aborigines with bows, or anyone in Australia/Oceania for that matter
Comment by Anonymous — 16 January 2007 @ 9:57 PM
Though I guess the sentence is true now, since I’m sure plenty of modern Australians practice archery. Of course, I’m sure someone has brought a bow and arrow to antarctica by now too.
Comment by Anonymous — 16 January 2007 @ 9:59 PM
Of course, it wasn’t as common, since the outback that makes up most of the continent is more suited for throwing sticks, like the boomerang.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 16 January 2007 @ 10:02 PM
I used to hunt alot with a bow and arrow when I was 11-13 (great experience). I was deadly serious about it (although I wasn’t hungry). I made my own from willow, sycamore and bamboo and string ,tape, nails and feathers-whatever was handy.
I hunted pheasants and rabbits, as I’d have got into trouble going after cattle and sheep!
But I never hit anything. In fact I was much better with a spear (although I didn’t know about atlatls) . I could track them ok( I suppose there were lots). Once I got within a twig-break of a whole field of geese before they all took off together, my arrow flying hopelessly after them.
But I think pheasants and rabbits and small game are much more suitable to traps. There’s agreat page from greenanarchy on trapping :-
http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/gutenberg/1/7/0/9/17093/17093-h/17093-h.htm
I don’t know if you guys have herds of buffalo wandering about where you are, but in Scotland there are a lot of Red Deer wandering all over the hills. They’re big and fit and you’d realisticly be lucky to be quick enough to get your camera out and get a snapshot before they disappear over the ridge. If you want one of them you’ll need a rifle or you’ll have to be well prepared with spears (atlatl would be good) and dogs(well trained) and surprise them.
But sheep-they’re slow and stupid and all you’d need would be any dog and penknife.
We’ve talked about this ,(sheep farmers included), it would take the people of Glasgow region (2.5 million-half the total population) about 3-4 days walking to get to the west highlands and about two weeks more to eat the lot!
And then what? Mac Mad Max!?
I don’t think it will be pretty.
What are you guys going to hunt/ eat ?
Comment by Scot Galego — 18 January 2007 @ 12:38 PM
The Allegheny National Forest is severely overpopulated with whitetail deer right now. That will change, but it will certainly help in the proximate future. And you’re right, traps are great for small game, and they provide a much more regular income than hunting. Of course, you can’t rely just on traps, or you’ll face rabbit starvation. In our group, it’s my brother Michael that’s really looking into the trapping. Hopefully I can persuade him to eventually write something here on the topic.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 January 2007 @ 12:44 PM
Just got back from eating ‘pulpo’-octopus, which is delicious and reminds me that Scotland is surrounded with thousands of miles of coastline all of which is only a maximum of 80 miles away but usually much less!
From what I can work out ,to catch ‘pulpo’ all you do is chuck a line full of clay pots out and they just jump right in there!! I should investigate more, but I suppose what’s available from the sea will depend a lot on the state of that sea. I remember that a line of feathers, cast from a boat in coastal waters,would bag you more mackrel than you could eat in a couple of minutes-but maybe now it’s not so easy?
But for sea living after the crash check out Dmitry Orlov :-
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=67&Itemid=1
It’s brilliant and his theories on boat design are …..I can’t think of a word that does justice to their totally sussed-ness! He sure knows his shit . Thanks to Ran Prieur for the link (and blame him for me being here!)
Comment by Scot Galego — 18 January 2007 @ 5:33 PM
Man’s domination and control of women, nonhuman animals, and the systematic destruction of the environment has nothing to do with a primitive weapon. Period. There is nothing inherently exploitive about throwing a spear.
Comment by Kyle — 23 January 2007 @ 1:47 AM
Kyle, that’s a fairly short-sighted statement. Materialism demonstrates how powerfully human thought is shaped by our material reality. The tools we use are very much a part of that. Technology changes the way we think and relate to one another; it shapes us on a very deep level. We’ve already explored in depth what an impact agriculture has had; David Abram explored the impact of writing. It stands to reason that spears and bows could well have had similar effects. It’s certainly a valid question.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 31 January 2007 @ 10:54 AM