The atlatl, an ancient spear-throwing tool first used thousands of years ago, enables both women and men to launch projectiles with very similar velocities. The discovery, which comes from modern experiments involving atlatls, provides more evidence that prehistoric female hunters would have been as capable as male hunters of putting meat on the table.
The research started when at Kent State University in Ohio began teaching a course in which dozens of students spent a day each semester practising throwing javelins and using an atlatl. The atlatl is a hand-held stick with a cup or groove at the end that is designed to launch a long, feathered projectile with a forward-flinging motion.
“The girls would often just naturally pick up the atlatl and whip the [projectiles] really far,” says Bebber. “Some of the male athletes would really be putting their all into it and get a little frustrated that the girls were doing this so well.”
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Bebber and her colleagues spent many evenings and weekends measuring the performance of more than 100 volunteers to see how well they could throw javelins and launch atlatl spears. Some 42 men and 56 women participated, along with 10 people who did not disclose their biological sex.
Each person threw a javelin 10 times and launched an atlatl spear 10 times while the researchers measured the projectiles’ velocities.
The results showed that female-launched javelins had velocities between 5.1 and 11.5 metres per second, whereas male-launched javelins achieved higher velocities of 8.1 to 16.1 metres per second.
By comparison, the atlatl spear velocities were much more similar – 10.1 to 20.1 metres per second for females versus 10.1 to 24.1 metres per second for males. “The atlatl is an equaliser” that could have encouraged “unification of labour” among female and male hunters, says , also at Kent State University and part of the research team.
Side-by-side comparisons of the same people using both javelins and atlatls provide valuable information, says at the University of Reading in the UK. It is possible that javelins may have been harder to learn to use and required more body mass or strength, she says, which may have spurred development of the atlatl.
But Milks also cautions that physiology is not the only factor determining a person’s hunting capabilities.
“[Hunting] skills are not just about our build, ability or strength but are also about knowledge and understanding of prey, environments and how these intersect with social factors,” she says. “We know ethnographically and archaeologically that women hunt, even if those activities are not as widely or frequently practised as they are by men.”
The Kent State University team says that it is also worth considering the possibility that women invented the atlatl or produced other weapon innovations.
“We know that in certain primate species, the females innovate and produce spears to go hunting,” says Bebber. “It’s interesting to think that perhaps women also were involved in innovating the atlatl.”
Scientific Reports
