The one thing we often miss when we talk about ancient weapons and how much training/learning there is around them is that those people back then would have learned to use them from being very young kids. Muscle memory and technique were developed from an early age which makes the learning process that much less effort. For an adult to pick up these weapons and learn them will take much more effort and time. You are also trying to figure the weapon out from scratch (well almost) where as those ancient tribes would have it figured out and pass the information to one another all the time and again very likely from childhood so putting it all together was a great deal easier for them than it is for you in the modern world. Your only advantage to making these weapons is modern tools, all the little pieces of forgotten knowledge of the past is hard to regain and will take years of trial and error to figure out. Good effort so far though and thanks for sharing your findings.
Thanks for sharing! I agree with you on just how much practice and construction techniques impact the performance of this weapon. I don't think Atlatl is a bad weapon. I think it might be one of the best primitive weapon out there if you need something that can deliver deep penetration with good accuracy. However I do think it's not appropriate for an emergency survival situation, even if you have the throwing skills. Just the construction and maintenance effort alone is quite high and can be better spent on other tasks.
Not to mention using them for REAL. Not just playing around in the park. Muscle memory and conceptual ideas become more compounded and real when used in real scenarios. Keep going for a year or more and learn better tactics. Building types and uses in different terrain. He didn't really follow through in many aspects.
I disagree with several of your statements. 1. You don't need foreshafts. simply attach the point to the main shaft. It works better that way and is simple to make and repair. 2. The best way to get straight shafts that are alike is to split them from a log. A 6 inch diameter X 7 foot ash log works best. Split it in half then split into quarters. Split off the inside "v" then split the remaining stave in half. Continue splitting the staves in half until you get the shafts small enough to make them into darts. I have made 24 darts from one such log all having nearly the same characteristics. In places where bamboo is available I would use that. Primitive survival isn't something you can accomplish in a weekend. It requires a lot of practice skills and knowledge. If you choose to use the atlatl in your quest to survive with human foundational survival skills ( I don't like the word primitive) you must prepare yourself wholeheartedly and develop the skills you will need. If you develop the necessary skills the atlatl will have no flaws. Atlatls were the implement favored by people on this continent for 15,000 years. The bow and arrow were brought into use in North America only about a thousand years ago. It is all about the degree of preparedness you would like to put yourself up to rather than there being some kind of inherent flaws in the atlatl. I have been hunting and fishing with atlatls for 30 years and yes my survival has depended on them for this entire time as I make and sell atlatl for a living. I have been teaching skills for two decades. Bob Berg
Thanks for watching! That's an interesting technique you mentioned about splitting out a larger stave into darts. It seems like that would solve the consistent flexibility problem in an easy way. I'm going to try it!
I have watched so many videos of creative hobbyists using materials at hand for dart shafts, fletching, points, etc. If you practice atlatl at all, it would probably be the first weapon to build . Just for fun watch some of the tutorials on youtube about making a survival bow and arrow. Alot of those arrows fly at about 50fps and are not accurate. Making a decent bow and arrow isn't done in a day or even a week, but an atlatl is made the same day you decide to make it, AND, the function of the atlatl is more about the experience of the user , a certain quality of spear is mostly a myth. One Australian hunter said in a video to look for a straight stick to use, try it out, if it doesn't fly straight, choose another. In a REAL survival situation it's the best advice you can get. I was impressed with a video I saw of an Australian hunter who needed a spear and whittled one down from a big piece of wood. He made a quick point with just a good flake he chipped from a rock without shaping it he put it on the spear and brought home a wallaby that same day. I was equally impressed with a Bob Berg video where he walked up to a lake and speared a fish in about thirty seconds. The entire point is that if you are good with the atlatl you can make do with whatever you find in a survival situation, so, in my opinion it's a good idea to get one , practice, and remember you can always make one when you need it. I wanted to make the point also that when learning the atlatl or when you are using it in a survival situation , you are ALOT less likely to lose your dart than an arrow, so you'll get alot more out of your practice without hunting for your darts, and ALOT more out of your survival situation by still having your darts at the end of the day, as most darts are front heavy and land point down. ANOTHER good point to remember is that your darts only need a fire hardened wood point for small and mid size game because the impact of the dart is very high.
Do you think you could make a tutorial on how to properly throw? All my darts do is fly into the target with no energy Anne bounce off when the point hits
@@jacoblee5546 We could make a video. It sounds like your follow through is weak. The power is applied at the end of the cast with the follow through. Too bad you weren't at our contest last weekend when a group of experienced atlatlists were given advice to a new thrower. We wish we had made a video. That thrower improved greatly by the end of the afternoon. He had never used an atlatl before that.
@@robertberg588 this is actually what I find a little silly. Because for a weapon that's hailed as being easy to understand you certainly have alot of people who can't self teach themselves on how to use it. I'd say what frustrates me the most is people saying to "throw like a ball" when it's clear that using a stick to throw another stick is much more complex and not obvious Ps. I wish we had Atlatl associations and events here in Canada but it's just not the case. Either way the video explaining everything would be awesome, until then I cant take it seriously and will just stick to using a bow and a sling
You should look up the “hunt primitive” TH-cam channel. He makes some incredibly well built atlatl equipment. he has multiple kills on camera from alligators to elk and pigs.
Yeah I'm subbed to his channel. I learned most of the atlatl build techniques from his videos. With that said while the atlatl is a powerful weapon, it has a ton of disadvantages.
@@WannabeBushcrafter "you can't carry more sticks than one" You definitely can. You just can comfortably throw one at the time. More sticks also close the gaps in-between shafts and they don't let brances, vines and vegetation through. That's the beauty but yes it takes a lot of time.
The Atlatl and Dart is a fantastic weapon. From what I see in your video you need more practice building better functioning Atlatls and much better darts. It took me awhile to figure out what makes a good combination. Keep practicing both building and throwing. Your darts are splitting because the hook is going to far into the end of the dart. Keep at it!
Thanks for watching! Yeah the Atlatl is certainly an interesting weapon that was fun to craft and practice with. I could see it as being an ideal weapon under certain long term primitive living situations. I still don't see it as a good survival weapon simply because the effort to craft/maintain it and the practice time needed to achieve effective accuracy is high. For survival purposes I could think of a number of primitive food gathering tools that are much easier to craft and would require little skill to use effectively.
What he's missing is a stone head. The weight in a stone point helps store energy in the dart. This increases the distance and accuracy of the dart. The spear thrower was used for as much time as the bow. Therefore it can't be such a bad tool.
Thanks for watching! Yeah I don't think the atlatl is a bad tool, it has advantages in terms of power output and penetration and it probably a good tool for hunting megafauna. But I do think it's a bad hunting tool for must survival situations today.
I like the flow and template of your videos, I’m excited to check out all the rest of them. I saw the atlatl on an episode of naked and afraid. I wanted to learn more about it, then stumbled onto your video about the staff sling also very cool. Thanks for the information, and good work.
I initially wanted to disagree with you. After watching the video in its entirety, I have to say, you ha e very good points. What I learned from your video is: If a person wants to use an atlatl for survival, they must be dedicated to its use.
Have you tried any kind of fletching? In my experience, even raw feathers or straw tied with bast and a little bit of something sticky does the job. The atlatl goes straight even if he is not perfectly straight. And firehardening/bending can make wood brittle and more prone to breake. Wax or oil give the wood after hardening a little bit of flexibilitiy back.
Thanks for watching, you're right that fletching definitely helps to stabilize the atlatl dart. I have tried that as well with duct tape fletching with noticeable improvements in flight stability. The drawback of fletching in my opinion is finding feathers in the woods takes a lot of time and straw/grass fletching is not very durable. So it could take more overall crafting and/or maintenance effort to fletch a dart rather than just to straighten it.
Wannabe Bushcrafter this may just be relative to me but if you have wild turkey in your area skim small creeks and stream and turkey feathers are all over the place
I would argue the biggest issue with the Atlatl lies in its usage technique understanding (in other words how it's supposed to even work). What will always keep me frustrated with it and yet being in love with the bow and the sling, lies in the fact that the other two can actually be repeated with muscle memory. This is not the case with the atlatl, in fact even when i throw using the same muscle memory i get two different results. It either inbeds into the target or it bounces right off with no energy whatsoever. Just a reminder to people like ryan gill, thunderbird atlatl and other "teachers" on youtube: saying "throw like a ball" does in no way or form translate or aid someone to understand how to use the Atlatl, period. Theres nothing more silly than trying to teach archery to someone and telling them "well ya just pull it like a door" when theres a million different steps to do it correctly
Thanks for watching! I kind of agree with you in the inherent difficulty in achieving consistency even with good muscle memory. You could do it by carefully selecting and crafting shafts with very similar size, lengths, spines and so on. But it's consuming and expensive. With the bow, making arrows is just as difficult but you get a stealthier, faster shooting weapon that is much easier to learn. With the sling, you can sort stones or make clay projectiles that are highly consistent with a small fraction of the effort when compared to Atlatl darts.
Thanks for watching! I don't live in the PNW. Near my area I heard that river cane is a good material for making darts, however it's not very easy to find. Yeah antler points would've done a number on game with the amount of power the atlatl can deliver.
Well. The atlatl and bow are of about the same age from the point of view of archeology. The big difference was in the intended usage. The bow is a ranging weapon accurate to 100 feet and well suited to smaller game. Deer on down. The atlatl was a speciality tool to kill large heavy game. The Clovis people of Europe and north america used this tool almost exclusively. It was not a ranging weapon as we try to make it today. The slender dart tipped with the long polished clovis point and leveraged throw of the atlatl was about deep penetration into the vitals of a huge ice age animal from very close range. While it can be found in many parts of the world among many cultures it is not the primary tool that it was in the ice age. As animals became smaller the bow became dominant thus displacing the atlatl. Tip and fletch your dart. Stand 10 feet away from a solid target of pine boards. The atlatl can easily penetrate 4-6 inches of pine. Thats its strength. Impact force and penetration. At 30 feet you might get two inches if you can hit the target.
@@WannabeBushcrafter That is the perception. Both systems can be traced back 30,000-50,000 years. Dating and recognition of the tool has been the problem. At that age range only the stone tip remains. The atlatl and shaft are gone. So too the bow. Add to that the fact most tips are found by amateur collectors and dating by geological strata is impossible. Thus our concept of the age on man in america was set at a few thousand years for example. Now atomic decay techniques allow dating of non-carbon items and the assumed dates have been pushed back five fold. Archeology as a science has progressed. New finds and better data have changed the ideas prevalent in the 1950’s that still persist popularly today. So typically, the bow and atlatl were not used by the same people in the same area at the same time. They are two very different tools. But they were used by different people in different locals at the same time. And now we know that people moved about much farther than was previously assumed. So it is likely that the atlatl culture knew of the bow, but saw no utility in that technology, and vice versa. Take the basket weaver culture of the southwest. They used a small version of the atlatl as recently as the 1600’s according to accounts of early explorers and archeologists. The tool had evolved down to a small game hunting tool. Other groups had long since adopted the bow but the basketmakers persisted. Much of todays fancy of the atlatl is based upon the basketmaker device. The Clovis point looks like a big arrow tip or a small spear. When first found in the 1800’s they were assumed to be “Indian” artifacts. They looked like spear or lance points and were lashed to a broom handle for display. That made for a crude looking and mostly dis functional spear. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that Paleolithic finds revealed the true age and use of the point. It was the ice age mammoth killer. Attached to a slender deadly dart, propelled by the atlatl. Cave art depicts this. And the remains of bone atlatl shed new insight. It was not the basket maker atlatl. Much like a 450 express elephant rifle is not your daddy’s 22 long rifle rabbit gun. So. In my youth I was guided by a museum curator in making an atlatl. I walked your path of discovery and frustration. And later learned that there was more to that tool than the curator knew. So all of you who seek a Bush tool are reinventing a wheel yet again. Because we know Clovis and the basketmakers had them but we dont quite have all the details that they knew worked out.
If you get the chance, try the stone throwing version of an atlatl. Essentially the same design, but instead a bowl cut in to the end of a stick, that you can load a small dense stone in to. Kind of like an oversized spoon or small lacrosse equipment. Easier ammunition, more predictable flight, and hits with easily enough force to stun/kill small game like rabbits. Also much easier to learn to use than a sling.
I’ve always loved the idea of the atlatl but have to agree finding long sticks the right length that are straight enough to bend in shape can be a chore in places and for small game I’d put the effort into a rabbit stick quicker easer to find the branch that’s suitable. Putting time into a sick you will likely brake in the dirt going after small game. Large game I can see 6hrs to get a moose to feed me all winter ok but not for one squirrel 🐿️ not so much
Atlatls are so much fun to throw. They're definitely limited in their practical applications as an improvised weapon, but that doesn't really bother me. I usually make the darts out of straight grained dowels and make steel tips and duct tape fletchings. I will have to try making some out of river cane or bamboo some time once the weather cools down a bit.
Wait until he finds out about making and maintaining a bow and its arrows with primitive tools. Making an atlatl dart is a sleepy afternoon by comparison. I will give him this: Atlatl aren’t exactly stealthy. Once you begin taking your shot, the whole world will know where you are.
Thanks for watching! I've made survival bows before I started crafting atlatls. I find the bow itself to be relatively easy to craft, the arrows are nearly as difficult to craft and maintain as atlatl darts though.
@@WannabeBushcrafter With a bow, do you mean that garbage you made in another video? Do you really think that a poorly made bow will be effective for hunting? You are deluded!
@@WannabeBushcrafter If you’re not really going to make an efficient bow it doesn’t even make sense to waste time on it.Do you really believe that you will hunt with what you call a bow?Done without any effort or skill?You will not hunt anything with these wooden tips that you make.Combining this with the pathetic power of the bows you make, the only thing you are going to hunt is butterflies.
This has been done by reconstructive archeologists. An article in the National Geographic about 20 years ago summarized it then. But do try and experiment for yourself.
I got this tip from Ron Hood who was talking about straightening arrow shafts but works just as well for atlatl darts. I’ll cut a bunch of river cane to the same length. Then put them together in a bundle and bind them tightly with cordage and set aside for a week or two in a dry place. The individual shafts are crooked but when bound together, the overall bundle is straight and the shafts will straighten out nicely.
At effective hunting ranges, fletching are not necessary if you keep your shafts very straight. However with that said, if you did have fletching you can then tolerate a small degree of warping of the shaft without it impacting accuracy.
There is a video of a kangaroo hunt in Australia I saw on youtube and the dart went through a large kangaroo. A woomera maker/user was talking about the darts, they don't use fletching's and use a hardened wood point. The man said that when you first select the dart to check if it will fly fairly straight as is, and if not, select a different stick. That struck me as really useful advice.
Thanks for watching! The thrower itself can be used as a kind of last ditch club. I know that some cultures such as the Aztecs also used a small shield on the hand that is holding the darts, but I would think that the loading sequence would be pretty awkward with that setup.
At their heyday, megafauna where prolific. So coffee can size targets are immaterial versus Downing something the size of a buffalo+ at more like 100m is where they come into their own.
Thanks for watching! I do believe that Atlatls were optimal for hunting megafauna. But once these huge animals disappeared throughout Eurasia, other weapons superseded the atlatl.
"Spear-thrower designs may include improvements such as thong loops to fit the fingers, the use of flexible shafts or stone balance weights. Dart shafts can be made thinner and highly flexible for added power and range, the fletching can be spiralized to add spin to the dart making it more stable and accurate. Darts resemble large arrows or small spears and are typically from 1.2 to 2.7 m (4 to 9 ft) in length and 9 to 16 mm (3/8" to 5/8") in diameter. Another important improvement to the spear-thrower's design was the introduction of a small weight (between 60 and 80 grams) strapped to its midsection. Some atlatlists maintain that stone weights add mass to the shaft of the device, causing resistance to acceleration when swung and resulting in a more forceful and accurate launch of the dart. Others claim that spear-thrower weights add only stability to a cast, resulting in greater accuracy." You're welcome.
Thanks for the tips! Yeah fletching definitely helps with stabilizing the flight of the dart. However I've also found that you don't really need fletching if you can keep your darts very straight. So it's a bit of a trade off. I've also tried stone counterweights on the launcher and they do seem to add more stability to casts. My only gripe with them is that they tend to come loose over time, thus requiring more maintenance effort.
You use the throwing stick as an example and most say that you could only take down small game with one. Would you say that one of those is as capable as an atlatl at taking down somthing like a boar or a small deer? How about your wooden bo-shuriken?
Thanks for watching! No throwing stick design would be as effective at penetration as the Atlatl. But a throwing stick would be way more effective against small game or birds than the Atlatl. I believe that the penetration that these Atlatl darts offer are not really appropriate for most survival situations. Most areas don't have the kind of big game that would require deep penetration like that. A small deer or a boar could be effectively penetrated by an arrow launched from a medium poundage bow. And that arrow would have the advantage of faster speed to target and way less visible motion.
The atlatl is a good survival weapon if you are already good at it. You can be ready to hunt small game in a day if you are good at making the weapon. Flintknapping is not for survival, unless you brought your safety glasses, gloves, and tools. ( getting an infection in a survival situation is not good for surviving ). One really good thing about the atlatl is that it is a great defense weapon and has the power to stop a predator or person. According to the situation, defense might be your highest priority. Also, the atlatl fits nicely in your bug out bag.
Lol a properly made longbow can take over 30-100+ man hours (depending on design) and require months to years of properly seasoning... One more point i would like to make is that it can take a good bit of time to become proficient with any primitive weapon, however the proficiency is often somewhat translatable to other primitive weapon
Thanks for watching! A well made long bow can take that much effort. A recurve could take even more effort. But I find that improvised survival bow designs such as the green wood stick bow or the bundle bow doesn't take very much time at all to craft. It's the arrows that take a lot of effort to make. Still I find that an arrow takes significantly less effort to craft than a good Atlatl dart. All things considered, I would say that a survival bow beats out the Atlatl in most environments.
Yea the performance of a bow is definitely better the atlatl... One note is that most of the long man-hour bows are of composite design one other note is that modern tools can cut the time quite a bit... Truthfully making an arrow isn't difficult however making a set of arrows that perform the same can be very time consuming and is often a real challenge... Thanks for making the video i feel it gives good information to people who might not have a lot of time in the primitive arts.
For the spear tip. Why not attach your blade to it? Which of course I wouldn't recommend doing if it were your only blade and the terrain was real Rocky and could break it damage it if it were to strike one tall grass or swampy areas that you can lose it
"You need both hands to load this weapon, so you can't carry something else while carrying this weapon. 1) Show me a weapon that does not require two hands to load. 2) The backpack, or satchel has been invented to carry things so you can use your arms and hands for other things. It's a cool new concept. 3) I think you have set out to convince yourself to purposefully not like this weapon for some undisclosed reason.
Thx for watching. Sure thing, a throwing stick would not require a complex loading sequence involving both hands. Various throwing axes and tomahawks can also be picked up and thrown with one hand. Javelins are another example, the user could use the other hand to hold something else (like a shield) and have the throwing hand take care of both the loading and the throwing. It doesn't really matter if you had a backpack or satchel to carry atlatl darts, you cannot load the weapon without using both of your hands to do so. I don't dislike the atlatl I just don't think it's a good survival weapon for the various reasons that I stated on this video.
The final “L” in Atlatl does not have the English “L” sound. More accurately the “L” is a short sound produced in the throat which is difficult to reproduce in writing. It sounds like sandpaper rubbing. For reference you can check TH-cam - with language teacher Super Holly in interviews with her father -A Nahuatl teacher & translator.
Yes, you have to develop some skills to build and use the atlatl successfully but then it is a highly useful device and nothing compares with it's impact power. You can use not only perfectly grown saplings, because also glued and tied together parts do work very well.
Thanks for watching! I've seen a video from Hunt primitive where he glued 2 shorter shafts together. I haven't tried that technique yet but it would seem to me that it solves 1 problem (finding long shafts) but adds other problems in it's place in terms of the bonding process and procuring sinew and glues. So I'm not sure if this approach actually makes the darts easier to produce overall.
@@WannabeBushcrafter Some times I was also looking for perfect shafts, but the I did a few approaches connecting two short ones and found out it was easier as expected: Just cutting or grinding them slanted, using some glue or pitch glue and strapping them together. Impact hit can not destroy the connection. Also did I end up with a barreled shape by putting the thick ends together in the middle where the shaft needs the most strength. The tip adds weight to the front enhancing the balance. Curves can and must be straightened either way. Because I remember your successful effort for slinging accuracy: Mr.Jaegoor is an awfully accurate slinger too und does helpfully explain his method.
Sooo...it's cumbersome, takes time to build and maintain, and requires practice to use effectively therefore its not an effective weapon compared to what? The only weapons I can think of that would require less investment would be a rock or throwing stick which have some very obvious limitations in regards to effectiveness, accuracy, and versatility
Thanks for watching! I think simpler tools/weapons such as the digging stick, spear, and throwing sticks offer a bigger benefit for very little effort. Weapons of equal build/maintenance complexity such as the bow and arrow offers significant advantages over the atlatl in most scenarios.
Thanks for watching! I actually tried to heat bending it just once when I first started constructing these things. Main issue that I encountered was that 1 short session could straighten it, but not dry the shaft enough, so after a few good casts, the shaft starts bending again. 1 long session would sometimes introduce cracks or checkering in the shaft, this prematurely and significantly reduces the shaft's lifespan.
The reason why your dart was splitting was because of 2 things, 1- you made the hole too deep, it shouldn't be a cup but rather a shallow bowl. 2- you didn't wrap sinew around the bowl to reinforce.
Thanks for watching! I've actually seen these splits happen with both shallow dimples and deep ones. It's a good point about sinew reinforcement, I've seen pictures of traditional atlatl darts with detachable heads have it on both both ends. The big limitation is that I would not be able to find sinew easily in a survival situation, you could sort of do the same thing with primitive cordage.
I think there better for battle. Accuracy wouldn't really matter as much since you have hundreds thrown at once. Great tool to help thin the ranks. Also works great in conjunction with the other projectiles on the scene
lack of vanes or a stone tip on the javelin is what prevented this atlatl from being much better. Your power output was great, but the javelins were not point balanced nor flying straight due to the lack of stabilising vanes.
So I've tried fletching the darts and they do have an impact on stabilizing the flight. But at effective hunting ranges out to 15-20 yards I found very little differences between fletched and non-fletched darts provided that the darts are kept super straight.
Thanks for watching! I'm sure they worked very well during a certain time period and under a certain set of conditions. But ultimately those circumstances changed and other primitive weapons designs were better suited to the new environment and thus displaced the Atlatl.
A lot of these issues go out of the window if you have suitable bamboo or cane growing in the area. Even then, its probably not the greatest hunting tool you can make in a pinch. A bow and arrows are easier to make in a pinch. Best of all would be a sling, but you need skill to use that and its probably not the best to take down anything other than small game. Although you could cripple or temporarily disable a deer with a rock from a sling.
Thanks for watching! I agree that the Atlatl is not the best weapon in most situations. Depending on the environment and the circumstances, the bow, sling, javelin or simple throwing stick would often be better.
Save time and make a better dart by attaching the point directly to the shaft. Instead of making foreshafts use your time to make more dart shafts. The easiest way to make many dart shafts in a bushcraft situation is to split them from a small but straight log 5 or 6 inches in diameter. Split shafts are easy to straighten. They dry enough to use in a few hours especially if you heat them over a fire. Split shafts are automatically tapered. You can improve them by carving them round but they work without doing that. Practice is most important. I have killed 21 wild boar, 4 deer and hundreds of fish with atlatls. I think atlatls make dandy survival weapons.
I agree with every single point. Besides this tool is reasonable to use only against larger game. Throwing sticks are way easier to use and with them you might actually hit something.
Thanks for watching! I tried to make it just like primitive stone age cultures did. I don't think I know all their crafting tricks but I can see why this weapon was phased out.
Thanks for watching! Yeah I'm fairly certain that the bow had much to do with the atlatl fading out of use. I also think that other primitive weapons such as the sling, throwing stick, and plain javelin could have been contributing factors as well.
@Rich Jageman Please don't let my video stop you from doing that! I found it interesting and a lot of fun to craft and learn how to use this weapon. IMHO the atlatl has one job that it really excels at (accurately penetrating the vital zone of big game animals), but it's just not a weapon that I would use for emergency survival purposes.
Time is longer than we think. The atlatl was at its peak from 30,000 years ago to about 4000 years ago. As the ice age receded animals got smaller. The atlatl was used less and the bow more. This is evidenced in the archeology of the american southwest but it happened world wide. The bow that superseded the atlatl was not the bow of the mounted plains Indian we invision in the past 300 years. It was larger and used an arrow that was big by todays standards. It was an ambush hunters weapon used on foot. The horse came very late in human history. At least as a mode of transport. As the horse was employed weapons became smaller, lighter as the horse provided the ability to close with fleeing game. The hefty spear used in ambush evolved to the lance. A slender long graceful weapon to be thrust from horseback. The bow became smaller with shorter draw and arrows for mounted use. And then the gun. Overnight change in tools.
Upon further investigation, it appears the atlatl is good for shallow water fishing. A great video of this method is documented by Fishing the wild Northern Territories, “is this the best spear fisherman in the world?”
I respectfully disagree. the Atlatl was used by our ancestors to hunt i.e. put food in the cave fire for 1,000's of years. it is an brilliant weapon that can take down deer. Hell out forbears took down mammoths !
Thanks for watching! Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the atlatl is a bad weapon, I just think it's a bad survival weapon. I'm sure you can hunt deer with it, but considering how much motion the hunter gives away with the throw as well as the relatively slow speed of the dart I do question if the payoff is worth the effort. Meaning, if you choose to hunt deer with it in a survival situation, are you risking more calories than you would get back? This is especially important when considering that there are other survival tools that can be crafted with much less effort but offers a bigger payoff (e.g spear, throwing stick, digging stick, various trap designs). Now if the goal is to hunt slow moving megafauna in a long term primitive living situation, then the Atlatl could be considered a good weapon for the job.
Darren your right! The atlatl was king of the ice age. It killed 10 ton animals. The bow could not. But when the half ton bison or smaller deer replaced the mastodon then the bow replaced the atlatl. That is the lesson of history. What you might do with technology is up to you and the situation you find yourself in. The atlatl is easier to make than a bow. But not well suited to hunting deer or small game. Can it be done? Many do. But if pure survival is the issue you’ll do what works.
Making atlatl spear is not difficult. Just use rattan or bamboo. They are easily straightened. Even, in most cases they are already straight. And they are cheap, at least in Asia.
Thanks for watching! Yes bamboo would be a great material to make darts. The issue is that bamboo is pretty rare in my part of the world, just a few nativized patches here and there. River cane is more common than bamboo but still pretty rare.
Thanks for watching! Since I made that video I actually did have several conversations with guys who tried hunting with the Atlatl. I think the overall theme of the Atlatl 1. Being not a good weapon for survival compared to simpler primitive weapons or even traps and 2. Being inferior to the bow in most hunting scenarios in most environments holds true.
@@WannabeBushcrafter No Problem, I was thinking of using these in a Post Apocalypse setting since they're Pretty Simple. Was even Thinking it'd be a Fun Fallout 4 Mod alongside the LS Bows. (Rebar and Explosive Darts sound AWESOME)
I built a very large one with a rock lashed to it, and a guide holster thing for my spear. Mine is throwing my actual spear.. I could probably take down a deer with one hit once I get some practice in. It was fun to make
@@WannabeBushcrafter next time I'm going to have to wait for the wood to dry before I carve it. After it dried, it warped and nothing is aligned now. I didn't even consider that when I made it. Mark 2 will be better lol
Thanks for watching! Primitive bows have similar challenges in terms of crafting complexity and maintenance however it is imho vastly superior in terms of learning curve and usability. A lower poundage survival bow requires far less practice than the atlatl to become effective with. An average person could achieve survival hunting accuracy levels in a week or less with a low poundage bow. It would take the same person months to get to the same level of accuracy with the Atlatl. In terms of usability, the bow is better in several ways. It's much easier to carry a bow in the woods. When firing the bow, there is minimal movement unlike the highly visible throwing motion with the atlatl. Finally arrows tend to fly significantly faster than Atlatl darts so game has less time to dodge the missile.
Thanks for watching! It might have been a good weapon when no other alternatives were available. But clearly when other primitive missile weapons were developed (e.g bow, sling, javelin), the atlatl faded away.
No, it simply means that your execution is flawed. Our ancestors relied upon it to meat on the table. So you can be certain that they got it exactly right.
Thanks for watching! The Atlatl was used for thousands of years and then it was phased out almost entirely from Eurasia. There is no such thing as a tool that is exactly right. If anything, the archeological record for the Atlatl should indicate that there was a period of time where it was the best(perhaps only) tool for the job, however after some time had passed, the weapon no longer worked well within a changed environment OR humanity found other tools that could do the job better or a combination of both factors.
Compared to most other primitive missile weapons, the basic atlatl dart is expensive to construct. An accurate sling stone takes about a minute to find, inspect, and test fire. A balanced and accurate throwing stick may take 5-10 minutes to find and build. A short javelin with an amentum throwing strap might take 20-30 minutes. Even a survival arrow with some grass fletching could be found, crafted and force dried by a fire in 1-2 hours. The atlatl dart just takes a lot of time and effort to make when compared to most other primitive missile weapons.
Well to be fair,its not a weapon thats supposed to be reloaded with extra ones,you build 1 arrow and use it once on lets say a hog,and then you put your atlatl away,and with your other close range weapon,you go finish it off,its also more effective when your group hunting with other who have it,chase it down and as i said,finish it off close range.
Thanks for watching! I feel like it's very likely for even an experienced hunter to miss an animal's vital zone even at 30 feet. Especially if the animal is moving. So having multiple darts for follow up shots just makes sense to me. Certainly primitive hunter gatherers practiced communal hunting which should have improved the odds.
The one thing we often miss when we talk about ancient weapons and how much training/learning there is around them is that those people back then would have learned to use them from being very young kids. Muscle memory and technique were developed from an early age which makes the learning process that much less effort. For an adult to pick up these weapons and learn them will take much more effort and time. You are also trying to figure the weapon out from scratch (well almost) where as those ancient tribes would have it figured out and pass the information to one another all the time and again very likely from childhood so putting it all together was a great deal easier for them than it is for you in the modern world. Your only advantage to making these weapons is modern tools, all the little pieces of forgotten knowledge of the past is hard to regain and will take years of trial and error to figure out. Good effort so far though and thanks for sharing your findings.
This.
Thanks for sharing! I agree with you on just how much practice and construction techniques impact the performance of this weapon. I don't think Atlatl is a bad weapon. I think it might be one of the best primitive weapon out there if you need something that can deliver deep penetration with good accuracy. However I do think it's not appropriate for an emergency survival situation, even if you have the throwing skills. Just the construction and maintenance effort alone is quite high and can be better spent on other tasks.
Not to mention using them for REAL. Not just playing around in the park. Muscle memory and conceptual ideas become more compounded and real when used in real scenarios. Keep going for a year or more and learn better tactics. Building types and uses in different terrain. He didn't really follow through in many aspects.
I disagree with several of your statements. 1. You don't need foreshafts. simply attach the point to the main shaft. It works better that way and is simple to make and repair. 2. The best way to get straight shafts that are alike is to split them from a log. A 6 inch diameter X 7 foot ash log works best. Split it in half then split into quarters. Split off the inside "v" then split the remaining stave in half. Continue splitting the staves in half until you get the shafts small enough to make them into darts. I have made 24 darts from one such log all having nearly the same characteristics. In places where bamboo is available I would use that. Primitive survival isn't something you can accomplish in a weekend. It requires a lot of practice skills and knowledge. If you choose to use the atlatl in your quest to survive with human foundational survival skills ( I don't like the word primitive) you must prepare yourself wholeheartedly and develop the skills you will need. If you develop the necessary skills the atlatl will have no flaws. Atlatls were the implement favored by people on this continent for 15,000 years. The bow and arrow were brought into use in North America only about a thousand years ago. It is all about the degree of preparedness you would like to put yourself up to rather than there being some kind of inherent flaws in the atlatl. I have been hunting and fishing with atlatls for 30 years and yes my survival has depended on them for this entire time as I make and sell atlatl for a living. I have been teaching skills for two decades. Bob Berg
Thanks for watching! That's an interesting technique you mentioned about splitting out a larger stave into darts. It seems like that would solve the consistent flexibility problem in an easy way. I'm going to try it!
I have watched so many videos of creative hobbyists using materials at hand for dart shafts, fletching, points, etc.
If you practice atlatl at all, it would probably be the first weapon to build .
Just for fun watch some of the tutorials on youtube about making a survival bow and arrow. Alot of those arrows fly at about 50fps and are not accurate. Making a decent bow and arrow isn't done in a day or even a week, but an atlatl is made the same day you decide to make it, AND, the function of the atlatl is more about the experience of the user , a certain quality of spear is mostly a myth. One Australian hunter said in a video to look for a straight stick to use, try it out, if it doesn't fly straight, choose another. In a REAL survival situation it's the best advice you can get.
I was impressed with a video I saw of an Australian hunter who needed a spear and whittled one down from a big piece of wood. He made a quick point with just a good flake he chipped from a rock without shaping it he put it on the spear and brought home a wallaby that same day.
I was equally impressed with a Bob Berg video where he walked up to a lake and speared a fish in about thirty seconds.
The entire point is that if you are good with the atlatl you can make do with whatever you find in a survival situation, so, in my opinion it's a good idea to get one , practice, and remember you can always make one when you need it.
I wanted to make the point also that when learning the atlatl or when you are using it in a survival situation , you are ALOT less likely to lose your dart than an arrow, so you'll get alot more out of your practice without hunting for your darts, and ALOT more out of your survival situation by still having your darts at the end of the day, as most darts are front heavy and land point down.
ANOTHER good point to remember is that your darts only need a fire hardened wood point for small and mid size game because the impact of the dart is very high.
Do you think you could make a tutorial on how to properly throw?
All my darts do is fly into the target with no energy Anne bounce off when the point hits
@@jacoblee5546 We could make a video. It sounds like your follow through is weak. The power is applied at the end of the cast with the follow through. Too bad you weren't at our contest last weekend when a group of experienced atlatlists were given advice to a new thrower. We wish we had made a video. That thrower improved greatly by the end of the afternoon. He had never used an atlatl before that.
@@robertberg588 this is actually what I find a little silly.
Because for a weapon that's hailed as being easy to understand you certainly have alot of people who can't self teach themselves on how to use it.
I'd say what frustrates me the most is people saying to "throw like a ball" when it's clear that using a stick to throw another stick is much more complex and not obvious
Ps. I wish we had Atlatl associations and events here in Canada but it's just not the case. Either way the video explaining everything would be awesome, until then I cant take it seriously and will just stick to using a bow and a sling
You should look up the “hunt primitive” TH-cam channel. He makes some incredibly well built atlatl equipment. he has multiple kills on camera from alligators to elk and pigs.
Yeah I'm subbed to his channel. I learned most of the atlatl build techniques from his videos. With that said while the atlatl is a powerful weapon, it has a ton of disadvantages.
Oooo now cool le me watch it
Its a group hunting weapon, for big game. So its use would be a team effort, with each tribesman having one.
Thanks for watching! I agree that it's more of a group hunting weapon.
@@WannabeBushcrafter "you can't carry more sticks than one" You definitely can. You just can comfortably throw one at the time. More sticks also close the gaps in-between shafts and they don't let brances, vines and vegetation through. That's the beauty but yes it takes a lot of time.
@@gyghchne5581 thx for watching!
@@WannabeBushcrafter np hit thots with precise accuracy as always xD
@GODFATHER GODFATHER ash and birch seems to work pretty well for me. Is just hard to find shafts of the right flexibility.
The Atlatl and Dart is a fantastic weapon. From what I see in your video you need more practice building better functioning Atlatls and much better darts. It took me awhile to figure out what makes a good combination. Keep practicing both building and throwing. Your darts are splitting because the hook is going to far into the end of the dart. Keep at it!
Thanks for watching! Yeah the Atlatl is certainly an interesting weapon that was fun to craft and practice with. I could see it as being an ideal weapon under certain long term primitive living situations. I still don't see it as a good survival weapon simply because the effort to craft/maintain it and the practice time needed to achieve effective accuracy is high. For survival purposes I could think of a number of primitive food gathering tools that are much easier to craft and would require little skill to use effectively.
What he's missing is a stone head. The weight in a stone point helps store energy in the dart.
This increases the distance and accuracy of the dart.
The spear thrower was used for as much time as the bow. Therefore it can't be such a bad tool.
Thanks for watching! Yeah I don't think the atlatl is a bad tool, it has advantages in terms of power output and penetration and it probably a good tool for hunting megafauna. But I do think it's a bad hunting tool for must survival situations today.
@@WannabeBushcrafter hah, thx for the vid, I was just wondering why they didn't make these on the island survival show
So how long did it take you to even learn it? I'm guessing merely a day or a few hours?
I like the flow and template of your videos, I’m excited to check out all the rest of them. I saw the atlatl on an episode of naked and afraid. I wanted to learn more about it, then stumbled onto your video about the staff sling also very cool. Thanks for the information, and good work.
Thanks for watching! Glad it was helpful!
I initially wanted to disagree with you. After watching the video in its entirety, I have to say, you ha e very good points. What I learned from your video is: If a person wants to use an atlatl for survival, they must be dedicated to its use.
Thanks for watching and commenting.
Have you tried any kind of fletching? In my experience, even raw feathers or straw tied with bast and a little bit of something sticky does the job. The atlatl goes straight even if he is not perfectly straight. And firehardening/bending can make wood brittle and more prone to breake. Wax or oil give the wood after hardening a little bit of flexibilitiy back.
Thanks for watching, you're right that fletching definitely helps to stabilize the atlatl dart. I have tried that as well with duct tape fletching with noticeable improvements in flight stability. The drawback of fletching in my opinion is finding feathers in the woods takes a lot of time and straw/grass fletching is not very durable. So it could take more overall crafting and/or maintenance effort to fletch a dart rather than just to straighten it.
Wannabe Bushcrafter this may just be relative to me but if you have wild turkey in your area skim small creeks and stream and turkey feathers are all over the place
@@jeepfamily4483 thx for watching ! Yeah we do have a small turkey population where I live but I haven't found too many tail feathers.
@@WannabeBushcrafter I know this is quite belated, but birchbark might be a decent option for fletching, if it grows in your area.
@@chaosvolt yeah I haven't tried birchbark fletching, but will give it a try one of these days.
I would argue the biggest issue with the Atlatl lies in its usage technique understanding (in other words how it's supposed to even work).
What will always keep me frustrated with it and yet being in love with the bow and the sling, lies in the fact that the other two can actually be repeated with muscle memory.
This is not the case with the atlatl, in fact even when i throw using the same muscle memory i get two different results. It either inbeds into the target or it bounces right off with no energy whatsoever.
Just a reminder to people like ryan gill, thunderbird atlatl and other "teachers" on youtube: saying "throw like a ball" does in no way or form translate or aid someone to understand how to use the Atlatl, period.
Theres nothing more silly than trying to teach archery to someone and telling them "well ya just pull it like a door" when theres a million different steps to do it correctly
Thanks for watching! I kind of agree with you in the inherent difficulty in achieving consistency even with good muscle memory. You could do it by carefully selecting and crafting shafts with very similar size, lengths, spines and so on. But it's consuming and expensive. With the bow, making arrows is just as difficult but you get a stealthier, faster shooting weapon that is much easier to learn. With the sling, you can sort stones or make clay projectiles that are highly consistent with a small fraction of the effort when compared to Atlatl darts.
Try using Ocean Spray or Hazel for your shafts if your in the PNW and antler/bone was used quite a bit for heads
Thanks for watching! I don't live in the PNW. Near my area I heard that river cane is a good material for making darts, however it's not very easy to find. Yeah antler points would've done a number on game with the amount of power the atlatl can deliver.
Well. The atlatl and bow are of about the same age from the point of view of archeology. The big difference was in the intended usage. The bow is a ranging weapon accurate to 100 feet and well suited to smaller game. Deer on down.
The atlatl was a speciality tool to kill large heavy game. The Clovis people of Europe and north america used this tool almost exclusively. It was not a ranging weapon as we try to make it today. The slender dart tipped with the long polished clovis point and leveraged throw of the atlatl was about deep penetration into the vitals of a huge ice age animal from very close range.
While it can be found in many parts of the world among many cultures it is not the primary tool that it was in the ice age. As animals became smaller the bow became dominant thus displacing the atlatl.
Tip and fletch your dart. Stand 10 feet away from a solid target of pine boards. The atlatl can easily penetrate 4-6 inches of pine. Thats its strength. Impact force and penetration. At 30 feet you might get two inches if you can hit the target.
Thanks for watching! That's an interesting perspective that you've shared. I've always thought that the Atlatl predates the bow by thousands of years.
@@WannabeBushcrafter That is the perception. Both systems can be traced back 30,000-50,000 years. Dating and recognition of the tool has been the problem. At that age range only the stone tip remains. The atlatl and shaft are gone. So too the bow. Add to that the fact most tips are found by amateur collectors and dating by geological strata is impossible. Thus our concept of the age on man in america was set at a few thousand years for example. Now atomic decay techniques allow dating of non-carbon items and the assumed dates have been pushed back five fold.
Archeology as a science has progressed. New finds and better data have changed the ideas prevalent in the 1950’s that still persist popularly today.
So typically, the bow and atlatl were not used by the same people in the same area at the same time. They are two very different tools. But they were used by different people in different locals at the same time. And now we know that people moved about much farther than was previously assumed. So it is likely that the atlatl culture knew of the bow, but saw no utility in that technology, and vice versa.
Take the basket weaver culture of the southwest. They used a small version of the atlatl as recently as the 1600’s according to accounts of early explorers and archeologists. The tool had evolved down to a small game hunting tool. Other groups had long since adopted the bow but the basketmakers persisted. Much of todays fancy of the atlatl is based upon the basketmaker device.
The Clovis point looks like a big arrow tip or a small spear. When first found in the 1800’s they were assumed to be “Indian” artifacts. They looked like spear or lance points and were lashed to a broom handle for display. That made for a crude looking and mostly dis functional spear. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that Paleolithic finds revealed the true age and use of the point. It was the ice age mammoth killer. Attached to a slender deadly dart, propelled by the atlatl. Cave art depicts this. And the remains of bone atlatl shed new insight. It was not the basket maker atlatl. Much like a 450 express elephant rifle is not your daddy’s 22 long rifle rabbit gun.
So. In my youth I was guided by a museum curator in making an atlatl. I walked your path of discovery and frustration. And later learned that there was more to that tool than the curator knew. So all of you who seek a Bush tool are reinventing a wheel yet again. Because we know Clovis and the basketmakers had them but we dont quite have all the details that they knew worked out.
@@MrJento th-cam.com/users/shortsX37AIcB3Nbk?si=E8QPrwHJpMLeZOE2
I find these videos you make to be very informative and practical and i enjoy them. Thank you very much.
Thanks for watching!
If you get the chance, try the stone throwing version of an atlatl. Essentially the same design, but instead a bowl cut in to the end of a stick, that you can load a small dense stone in to. Kind of like an oversized spoon or small lacrosse equipment. Easier ammunition, more predictable flight, and hits with easily enough force to stun/kill small game like rabbits. Also much easier to learn to use than a sling.
Thanks for watching, I need to try that out sometime.
I’ve always loved the idea of the atlatl but have to agree finding long sticks the right length that are straight enough to bend in shape can be a chore in places and for small game I’d put the effort into a rabbit stick quicker easer to find the branch that’s suitable.
Putting time into a sick you will likely brake in the dirt going after small game.
Large game I can see 6hrs to get a moose to feed me all winter ok but not for one squirrel 🐿️ not so much
Thanks for watching! Yeah after playing around with the Atlatl I have similar thoughts.
Atlatls are so much fun to throw. They're definitely limited in their practical applications as an improvised weapon, but that doesn't really bother me. I usually make the darts out of straight grained dowels and make steel tips and duct tape fletchings. I will have to try making some out of river cane or bamboo some time once the weather cools down a bit.
Thanks for watching! I agree that Atlatl darts are indeed fun to practice with.
Wait until he finds out about making and maintaining a bow and its arrows with primitive tools. Making an atlatl dart is a sleepy afternoon by comparison.
I will give him this: Atlatl aren’t exactly stealthy. Once you begin taking your shot, the whole world will know where you are.
Thanks for watching! I've made survival bows before I started crafting atlatls. I find the bow itself to be relatively easy to craft, the arrows are nearly as difficult to craft and maintain as atlatl darts though.
@@WannabeBushcrafter With a bow, do you mean that garbage you made in another video? Do you really think that a poorly made bow will be effective for hunting? You are deluded!
@@WannabeBushcrafter You won't be able to kill even a squirrel with a crappy bow that you make.
@@WannabeBushcrafter If you’re not really going to make an efficient bow it doesn’t even make sense to waste time on it.Do you really believe that you will hunt with what you call a bow?Done without any effort or skill?You will not hunt anything with these wooden tips that you make.Combining this with the pathetic power of the bows you make, the only thing you are going to hunt is butterflies.
@@WannabeBushcrafter The atlatl is much easier to make than a bow, and with a bow I say a real one made with effort, not the toys you make.
Can u compare the projectile hunting tools and see which would be best for different situations
Thanks for watching! I've been playing around with quite a few primitive weapon designs. It's on my list to create a summary video one of these days.
This has been done by reconstructive archeologists. An article in the National Geographic about 20 years ago summarized it then. But do try and experiment for yourself.
I got this tip from Ron Hood who was talking about straightening arrow shafts but works just as well for atlatl darts. I’ll cut a bunch of river cane to the same length. Then put them together in a bundle and bind them tightly with cordage and set aside for a week or two in a dry place. The individual shafts are crooked but when bound together, the overall bundle is straight and the shafts will straighten out nicely.
Nice, I haven't tried this technique, but I will give it a try.
@@WannabeBushcrafter Let me know how it works for ya.
Do you feel the fletching was not necessary?
At effective hunting ranges, fletching are not necessary if you keep your shafts very straight. However with that said, if you did have fletching you can then tolerate a small degree of warping of the shaft without it impacting accuracy.
Australian aboriginal people use this. They call it a woomera. Thank you for your videos, I really enjoy them.
Thanks for watching! Glad you like it!
There is a video of a kangaroo hunt in Australia I saw on youtube and the dart went through a large kangaroo. A woomera maker/user was talking about the darts, they don't use fletching's and use a hardened wood point. The man said that when you first select the dart to check if it will fly fairly straight as is, and if not, select a different stick. That struck me as really useful advice.
can the thrower be combined with other hand weapons?
Thanks for watching! The thrower itself can be used as a kind of last ditch club. I know that some cultures such as the Aztecs also used a small shield on the hand that is holding the darts, but I would think that the loading sequence would be pretty awkward with that setup.
At their heyday, megafauna where prolific.
So coffee can size targets are immaterial versus Downing something the size of a buffalo+ at more like 100m is where they come into their own.
Thanks for watching! I do believe that Atlatls were optimal for hunting megafauna. But once these huge animals disappeared throughout Eurasia, other weapons superseded the atlatl.
"Spear-thrower designs may include improvements such as thong loops to fit the fingers, the use of flexible shafts or stone balance weights. Dart shafts can be made thinner and highly flexible for added power and range, the fletching can be spiralized to add spin to the dart making it more stable and accurate. Darts resemble large arrows or small spears and are typically from 1.2 to 2.7 m (4 to 9 ft) in length and 9 to 16 mm (3/8" to 5/8") in diameter.
Another important improvement to the spear-thrower's design was the introduction of a small weight (between 60 and 80 grams) strapped to its midsection. Some atlatlists maintain that stone weights add mass to the shaft of the device, causing resistance to acceleration when swung and resulting in a more forceful and accurate launch of the dart. Others claim that spear-thrower weights add only stability to a cast, resulting in greater accuracy."
You're welcome.
Thanks for the tips! Yeah fletching definitely helps with stabilizing the flight of the dart. However I've also found that you don't really need fletching if you can keep your darts very straight. So it's a bit of a trade off. I've also tried stone counterweights on the launcher and they do seem to add more stability to casts. My only gripe with them is that they tend to come loose over time, thus requiring more maintenance effort.
Spears are not projectile weapons. They are darts, even if they are a similar length to spears, they are two very different weapons.
You use the throwing stick as an example and most say that you could only take down small game with one. Would you say that one of those is as capable as an atlatl at taking down somthing like a boar or a small deer? How about your wooden bo-shuriken?
Thanks for watching! No throwing stick design would be as effective at penetration as the Atlatl. But a throwing stick would be way more effective against small game or birds than the Atlatl. I believe that the penetration that these Atlatl darts offer are not really appropriate for most survival situations. Most areas don't have the kind of big game that would require deep penetration like that. A small deer or a boar could be effectively penetrated by an arrow launched from a medium poundage bow. And that arrow would have the advantage of faster speed to target and way less visible motion.
How come you didn't fletch your arrows? Accuracy is much better when fletched.
Fletching requires feathers and I couldn't find good ones in my local woods.
The atlatl is a good survival weapon if you are already good at it. You can be ready to hunt small game in a day if you are good at making the weapon. Flintknapping is not for survival, unless you brought your safety glasses, gloves, and tools. ( getting an infection in a survival situation is not good for surviving ).
One really good thing about the atlatl is that it is a great defense weapon and has the power to stop a predator or person. According to the situation, defense might be your highest priority.
Also, the atlatl fits nicely in your bug out bag.
Thanks for watching!
@@WannabeBushcrafter
it was a good video
Very good point! people missing the difficulty of use an mantainance, and also the difficulty to use it on field...
Thanks for watching!
Lol a properly made longbow can take over 30-100+ man hours (depending on design) and require months to years of properly seasoning... One more point i would like to make is that it can take a good bit of time to become proficient with any primitive weapon, however the proficiency is often somewhat translatable to other primitive weapon
Thanks for watching! A well made long bow can take that much effort. A recurve could take even more effort. But I find that improvised survival bow designs such as the green wood stick bow or the bundle bow doesn't take very much time at all to craft. It's the arrows that take a lot of effort to make. Still I find that an arrow takes significantly less effort to craft than a good Atlatl dart. All things considered, I would say that a survival bow beats out the Atlatl in most environments.
Yea the performance of a bow is definitely better the atlatl... One note is that most of the long man-hour bows are of composite design one other note is that modern tools can cut the time quite a bit... Truthfully making an arrow isn't difficult however making a set of arrows that perform the same can be very time consuming and is often a real challenge... Thanks for making the video i feel it gives good information to people who might not have a lot of time in the primitive arts.
Was this spear made from the Sudanese pyramid
Lol it is not.
Im thinking of making one cause one of my arms often hurts so a one handed weapon is appealing. Im not sure my arms would handle the stress of a bow.
Thanks for watching! Atlatls are definitely worth trying out.
For the spear tip. Why not attach your blade to it? Which of course I wouldn't recommend doing if it were your only blade and the terrain was real Rocky and could break it damage it if it were to strike one tall grass or swampy areas that you can lose it
Thanks for watching! That is exactly the reason why I would never risk my metal blade. It's simply too valuable in a survival situation.
"You need both hands to load this weapon, so you can't carry something else while carrying this weapon.
1) Show me a weapon that does not require two hands to load.
2) The backpack, or satchel has been invented to carry things so you can use your arms and hands for other things. It's a cool new concept.
3) I think you have set out to convince yourself to purposefully not like this weapon for some undisclosed reason.
Thx for watching. Sure thing, a throwing stick would not require a complex loading sequence involving both hands. Various throwing axes and tomahawks can also be picked up and thrown with one hand. Javelins are another example, the user could use the other hand to hold something else (like a shield) and have the throwing hand take care of both the loading and the throwing. It doesn't really matter if you had a backpack or satchel to carry atlatl darts, you cannot load the weapon without using both of your hands to do so.
I don't dislike the atlatl I just don't think it's a good survival weapon for the various reasons that I stated on this video.
It's not a quick or convenient "survival" weapon. Well of course not, because it was never designed to be.
LOL, you don't "load" a throwing stick, or a tomahawk, or a javelin. They are one piece weapons.
The final “L” in Atlatl does not have the English “L” sound.
More accurately the “L” is a short sound produced in the throat which is difficult to reproduce in writing.
It sounds like sandpaper rubbing.
For reference you can check TH-cam - with language teacher Super Holly in interviews with her father -A Nahuatl teacher & translator.
Thanks for sharing!
Another great video, I love primitive weapons like the Atlatal.
Thanks!
Yes, you have to develop some skills to build and use the atlatl successfully but then it is a highly useful device and nothing compares with it's impact power.
You can use not only perfectly grown saplings, because also glued and tied together parts do work very well.
Thanks for watching! I've seen a video from Hunt primitive where he glued 2 shorter shafts together. I haven't tried that technique yet but it would seem to me that it solves 1 problem (finding long shafts) but adds other problems in it's place in terms of the bonding process and procuring sinew and glues. So I'm not sure if this approach actually makes the darts easier to produce overall.
@@WannabeBushcrafter
Some times I was also looking for perfect shafts, but the I did a few approaches connecting two short ones and found out it was easier as expected: Just cutting or grinding them slanted, using some glue or pitch glue and strapping them together. Impact hit can not destroy the connection.
Also did I end up with a barreled shape by putting the thick ends together in the middle where the shaft needs the most strength. The tip adds weight to the front enhancing the balance.
Curves can and must be straightened either way.
Because I remember your successful effort for slinging accuracy:
Mr.Jaegoor is an awfully accurate slinger too und does helpfully explain his method.
@@vincenthamilton2828 thanks for sharing the details! I'll try this out one of these days!
Sooo...it's cumbersome, takes time to build and maintain, and requires practice to use effectively therefore its not an effective weapon compared to what? The only weapons I can think of that would require less investment would be a rock or throwing stick which have some very obvious limitations in regards to effectiveness, accuracy, and versatility
Thanks for watching! I think simpler tools/weapons such as the digging stick, spear, and throwing sticks offer a bigger benefit for very little effort. Weapons of equal build/maintenance complexity such as the bow and arrow offers significant advantages over the atlatl in most scenarios.
Days to steam bend a projectile shaft? 🤦♂️ It can be done in an afternoon to a pile of shafts. God damn, this guy is daft.
Thanks for watching! I actually tried to heat bending it just once when I first started constructing these things. Main issue that I encountered was that 1 short session could straighten it, but not dry the shaft enough, so after a few good casts, the shaft starts bending again. 1 long session would sometimes introduce cracks or checkering in the shaft, this prematurely and significantly reduces the shaft's lifespan.
Great video
Glad you enjoyed it
The reason why your dart was splitting was because of 2 things, 1- you made the hole too deep, it shouldn't be a cup but rather a shallow bowl. 2- you didn't wrap sinew around the bowl to reinforce.
Thanks for watching! I've actually seen these splits happen with both shallow dimples and deep ones. It's a good point about sinew reinforcement, I've seen pictures of traditional atlatl darts with detachable heads have it on both both ends. The big limitation is that I would not be able to find sinew easily in a survival situation, you could sort of do the same thing with primitive cordage.
@@WannabeBushcrafter oh I see! I like the perspective of using what you have if you were just starting out. I love the Atlatl I use it to spear fish .
The pit trap can be an effective survival/self defense tool, but digging the pit is depressing.
Thx for watching!
Instead of a atlatl the Irish tied a length of string to each dart.
Thanks for watching! Yeah I've started playing with that system, it's called an Amentum and it's real interesting.
When i was a kid we used to make string throw dart/shafts...i didnt realise the string thrower was an irish invention...
I think there better for battle. Accuracy wouldn't really matter as much since you have hundreds thrown at once. Great tool to help thin the ranks. Also works great in conjunction with the other projectiles on the scene
Thx for watching!
lack of vanes or a stone tip on the javelin is what prevented this atlatl from being much better. Your power output was great, but the javelins were not point balanced nor flying straight due to the lack of stabilising vanes.
So I've tried fletching the darts and they do have an impact on stabilizing the flight. But at effective hunting ranges out to 15-20 yards I found very little differences between fletched and non-fletched darts provided that the darts are kept super straight.
Our ancestors would not have used them if they were not great.
Thanks for watching! I'm sure they worked very well during a certain time period and under a certain set of conditions. But ultimately those circumstances changed and other primitive weapons designs were better suited to the new environment and thus displaced the Atlatl.
A lot of these issues go out of the window if you have suitable bamboo or cane growing in the area. Even then, its probably not the greatest hunting tool you can make in a pinch. A bow and arrows are easier to make in a pinch. Best of all would be a sling, but you need skill to use that and its probably not the best to take down anything other than small game. Although you could cripple or temporarily disable a deer with a rock from a sling.
Thanks for watching! I agree that the Atlatl is not the best weapon in most situations. Depending on the environment and the circumstances, the bow, sling, javelin or simple throwing stick would often be better.
Save time and make a better dart by attaching the point directly to the shaft. Instead of making foreshafts use your time to make more dart shafts. The easiest way to make many dart shafts in a bushcraft situation is to split them from a small but straight log 5 or 6 inches in diameter. Split shafts are easy to straighten. They dry enough to use in a few hours especially if you heat them over a fire. Split shafts are automatically tapered. You can improve them by carving them round but they work without doing that. Practice is most important. I have killed 21 wild boar, 4 deer and hundreds of fish with atlatls. I think atlatls make dandy survival weapons.
Thanks for sharing these tips. I'm going to try the split shaft technique.
you don't always have to hand bend it sometimes it straight enough
Thanks for watching!
It has the best killing power for a bigger game. Momentum equals mass times velocity.
Thanks for watching! Yeah I agree that it's optimal for use against big game.
I agree with every single point. Besides this tool is reasonable to use only against larger game. Throwing sticks are way easier to use and with them you might actually hit something.
Thanks for watching!
great videos well done
Glad you like them!
Because your not making one like the primitives did
Thanks for watching! I tried to make it just like primitive stone age cultures did. I don't think I know all their crafting tricks but I can see why this weapon was phased out.
lol, wonder if a pvc pipe with one end cut to a point would work for a dart. It could take 10 min to make one!
Thanks for watching! I haven't tried that yet.
I think I'd make a throwing stick/karli first.. actually first I'd get a handful of rocks :)
Thx for watching! Yeah I think a throwing stick is a better survival weapon.
I thought when bows began circulating and horses were domesticated they pushed the atlatl out.
Thanks for watching! Yeah I'm fairly certain that the bow had much to do with the atlatl fading out of use. I also think that other primitive weapons such as the sling, throwing stick, and plain javelin could have been contributing factors as well.
@@WannabeBushcrafter Love your videos, I was actually contemplating making one this weekend. Now I might rethink that.
@Rich Jageman Please don't let my video stop you from doing that! I found it interesting and a lot of fun to craft and learn how to use this weapon. IMHO the atlatl has one job that it really excels at (accurately penetrating the vital zone of big game animals), but it's just not a weapon that I would use for emergency survival purposes.
@@WannabeBushcrafter I need to source the darts! I have materials to make 4 or 5 about 5 feet long but that is it.
Time is longer than we think. The atlatl was at its peak from 30,000 years ago to about 4000 years ago. As the ice age receded animals got smaller. The atlatl was used less and the bow more. This is evidenced in the archeology of the american southwest but it happened world wide.
The bow that superseded the atlatl was not the bow of the mounted plains Indian we invision in the past 300 years. It was larger and used an arrow that was big by todays standards. It was an ambush hunters weapon used on foot. The horse came very late in human history. At least as a mode of transport. As the horse was employed weapons became smaller, lighter as the horse provided the ability to close with fleeing game. The hefty spear used in ambush evolved to the lance. A slender long graceful weapon to be thrust from horseback. The bow became smaller with shorter draw and arrows for mounted use. And then the gun. Overnight change in tools.
Upon further investigation, it appears the atlatl is good for shallow water fishing.
A great video of this method is documented by Fishing the wild Northern Territories, “is this the best spear fisherman in the world?”
Thanks for watching!
I respectfully disagree. the Atlatl was used by our ancestors to hunt i.e. put food in the cave fire for 1,000's of years. it is an brilliant weapon that can take down deer. Hell out forbears took down mammoths !
Thanks for watching! Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that the atlatl is a bad weapon, I just think it's a bad survival weapon. I'm sure you can hunt deer with it, but considering how much motion the hunter gives away with the throw as well as the relatively slow speed of the dart I do question if the payoff is worth the effort. Meaning, if you choose to hunt deer with it in a survival situation, are you risking more calories than you would get back? This is especially important when considering that there are other survival tools that can be crafted with much less effort but offers a bigger payoff (e.g spear, throwing stick, digging stick, various trap designs). Now if the goal is to hunt slow moving megafauna in a long term primitive living situation, then the Atlatl could be considered a good weapon for the job.
@HappyandAtheist thx for watching, yeah the Atlatl was mad fun to play around with.
Darren your right! The atlatl was king of the ice age. It killed 10 ton animals. The bow could not. But when the half ton bison or smaller deer replaced the mastodon then the bow replaced the atlatl. That is the lesson of history.
What you might do with technology is up to you and the situation you find yourself in. The atlatl is easier to make than a bow. But not well suited to hunting deer or small game. Can it be done? Many do. But if pure survival is the issue you’ll do what works.
Making atlatl spear is not difficult. Just use rattan or bamboo. They are easily straightened. Even, in most cases they are already straight. And they are cheap, at least in Asia.
Thanks for watching! Yes bamboo would be a great material to make darts. The issue is that bamboo is pretty rare in my part of the world, just a few nativized patches here and there. River cane is more common than bamboo but still pretty rare.
Well, in a time of need? Can one "wish" a perfect weapon? I reckon not
Thanks for watching! No weapon is perfect, each design has it's trade offs.
Thanks BTW I made one and it go well
Great!
Thanks for the video btw
@@danielyuzuyt3960 glad you liked it!
That would be very effective for deer hunting!
Yes it would, though not as effective as a bow.
Guess you might want to convers with those who actually hunt with them
I bet they diverse from your views
Thanks for watching! Since I made that video I actually did have several conversations with guys who tried hunting with the Atlatl. I think the overall theme of the Atlatl 1. Being not a good weapon for survival compared to simpler primitive weapons or even traps and 2. Being inferior to the bow in most hunting scenarios in most environments holds true.
There's a Reason to play Lacrosse and it's Atlatl training
LOL, thanks for watching!
@@WannabeBushcrafter No Problem, I was thinking of using these in a Post Apocalypse setting since they're Pretty Simple.
Was even Thinking it'd be a Fun Fallout 4 Mod alongside the LS Bows. (Rebar and Explosive Darts sound AWESOME)
I built a very large one with a rock lashed to it, and a guide holster thing for my spear. Mine is throwing my actual spear.. I could probably take down a deer with one hit once I get some practice in. It was fun to make
Nice!
@@WannabeBushcrafter next time I'm going to have to wait for the wood to dry before I carve it. After it dried, it warped and nothing is aligned now. I didn't even consider that when I made it. Mark 2 will be better lol
Most of these problems happen with a bow in primitive conditions
Thanks for watching! Primitive bows have similar challenges in terms of crafting complexity and maintenance however it is imho vastly superior in terms of learning curve and usability.
A lower poundage survival bow requires far less practice than the atlatl to become effective with. An average person could achieve survival hunting accuracy levels in a week or less with a low poundage bow. It would take the same person months to get to the same level of accuracy with the Atlatl.
In terms of usability, the bow is better in several ways. It's much easier to carry a bow in the woods. When firing the bow, there is minimal movement unlike the highly visible throwing motion with the atlatl. Finally arrows tend to fly significantly faster than Atlatl darts so game has less time to dodge the missile.
So essentially it's the A.R of 10k years ago...
Thanks for watching! That's a good observation.
It was used for generations. So it worked. Period.
Thanks for watching! It might have been a good weapon when no other alternatives were available. But clearly when other primitive missile weapons were developed (e.g bow, sling, javelin), the atlatl faded away.
No, it simply means that your execution is flawed. Our ancestors relied upon it to meat on the table. So you can be certain that they got it exactly right.
Thanks for watching! The Atlatl was used for thousands of years and then it was phased out almost entirely from Eurasia. There is no such thing as a tool that is exactly right. If anything, the archeological record for the Atlatl should indicate that there was a period of time where it was the best(perhaps only) tool for the job, however after some time had passed, the weapon no longer worked well within a changed environment OR humanity found other tools that could do the job better or a combination of both factors.
Use river cane
Thx for watching! I heard rivercane made good darts, however it's pretty rare in my area.
At least be able to pronounce it correctly before you make assumptions
Expensive to construct?
I think you're doing it wrong.
Compared to most other primitive missile weapons, the basic atlatl dart is expensive to construct. An accurate sling stone takes about a minute to find, inspect, and test fire. A balanced and accurate throwing stick may take 5-10 minutes to find and build. A short javelin with an amentum throwing strap might take 20-30 minutes. Even a survival arrow with some grass fletching could be found, crafted and force dried by a fire in 1-2 hours. The atlatl dart just takes a lot of time and effort to make when compared to most other primitive missile weapons.
You mean more time intensive?
@@Andrew-en4zx expensive in terms of time and also resources.
the darts need fletchings.
Thanks for watching! Fletchings definitely make the darts more stable in flight without having to be completely straight.
as is with any tool learn to use it
Thanks for watching! It takes quite a bit of effort to become effective with this tool.
Wow. Those throwing skills were amazing!
Thanks!
Great now I could go to hunt
Thanks!
Ur welcome
Actually im your biggest fan
You're throwing it with the wrong hand!!
Thx for watching! I'm left handed.
Rating
Thx for watching!
Subbed
Thanks for subbing! I appreciate it!
Yeah well. The Atlatl wasn't made to penetrate a tin can either. Video sucks
The be best atlatl dart-shafts were made of reeves, not wood.
Thanks for watching! Yes I heard that river cane darts are the best. However I can't find any river cane in my area.
Well to be fair,its not a weapon thats supposed to be reloaded with extra ones,you build 1 arrow and use it once on lets say a hog,and then you put your atlatl away,and with your other close range weapon,you go finish it off,its also more effective when your group hunting with other who have it,chase it down and as i said,finish it off close range.
Thanks for watching! I feel like it's very likely for even an experienced hunter to miss an animal's vital zone even at 30 feet. Especially if the animal is moving. So having multiple darts for follow up shots just makes sense to me. Certainly primitive hunter gatherers practiced communal hunting which should have improved the odds.