THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 4, 1995 TAG: 9511030011
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Maybe it was a loose-ends Saturday, perhaps before I reached my teens, that an older kid in my Norfolk neighborhood - I'll call him Joe - showed some us how to whittle an old cedar shingle into an arrow-shaped device that could be flung a remarkable distance, propelled by a straight stick with a short nail protruding upward at one end. The nail was hooked into a notch at the rear of the arrow when you were about to throw it from a position behind your shoulder.
Well, just the other day, this all came back to me when I was reading a fascinating article in The Wall Street Journal, one of those off-beat, in-depth pieces The Journal regularly puts on the front page.
The writer, Bob Ortega, focuses on a modern-day revival of interest in a primitive contrivance called the atlatl (an Aztec word), with fanciers now sharing their enthusiasms through an 8-year-old organization called the World Atlatl Association.
Ortega describes how early man had discovered the power of the atlatl (essentially the same spear-and-stick combination my friend Joe produced with his pocketknife that long-ago day) almost everywhere on Earth - though not Africa, according to the evidence as of now. And this throwing stick had been used for thousands of years prior to the invention of the bow and arrow.
The atlatl's spear had a notch at one end and a finely sharpened piece of stone fitted to the other. The throwing stick itself was equipped with a hook. This nested in the notch of the spear when the latter, ready for flinging, lay atop and along the throwing stick.
Enthusiasts of today, it seems, have conducted some revealing experiments, illustrating not only the usefulness of the apparatus as a food-provider for hunters of the distant past but indicating that the device may have influenced the history of at least one animal species. The stick-thrown shaft has been proved powerful enough to penetrate an elephant's hide - even the metal of a automobile door. One speculative conclusion: The extermination of that great elephant, the mammoth, some 11,000 years ago may well have been at the hands of atlatl-armed humans.
Of course, this latest surge of interest in the atlatl is not the first. The design of the prehistoric weapon, its accuracy and force, as well as its emergence on the earthly scene long before the bow, have been well known to anthropologists and archaeologists.
Particularly fascinating have been the finds of variously shaped ``bannerstones,'' generally believed to have served as power-increasing weights on the throwing-stick section of the weapon. (Incidentally, great numbers of the projectile points found on various ancient habitation sites are not ``arrowheads'' at all, but were chipped out for fastening to the business end of atlatl spears.)
I first came across all this information when I got seriously interested in early man's ways and tools a couple of decades ago. And I can remember my surprise at learning just how old the throwing stick was.
Until then, I guess I thought Joe invented it. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk. by CNB