2023-08-21 11:22:11
Atlatl – FLICKR
MADRID, 21 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The atlatl (that is, the dart propeller) worked like an ‘equaliser’ between the sexesa finding that supports the potentially active role of women as prehistoric hunters.
This is demonstrated by a new study led by archaeologist Michelle Bebber, from Kent State University, and published in Scientific Reports with the title: “The use of Atlatl equalizes the speed of female and male projectile weapons”,
The atlatl is a portable, rod-shaped device that uses a lever to launch a dart and represents an important human technological innovation used in hunting and warfare since the Stone Age. The earliest javelins are at least hundreds of thousands of years old; the earliest atlatls are probably at least tens of thousands of years old.
“One hypothesis for the adoption of the foraging atlatl over its presumed predecessor, the throwing javelin, is that a diverse variety of individuals could achieve the same performance results, thus facilitating the inclusive participation of more people in hunting activities,” he said. drinking it’s a statement.
Bebber’s study tested this hypothesis through a systematic evaluation of 2,160 weapon throwing events by 108 people, all freshmen (many of whom were Kent State students) who used javelins and atlatls. The results are consistent with the “equalizing atlatl hypothesis”, which shows that the atlatl not only increases the velocity of projectile weapons relative to thrown javelins, rather, the atlatl equals the speed of projectiles thrown by men and women.
“This result indicates that a transition from javelin to atlatl would have promoted a unification, rather than a division, of labor,” Bebber said. “Our results suggest that the burials of women and men with atlatl weaponry should be interpreted similarly, and in some archaeological contexts women could have been the inventors of the atlatl”.
“Many people tend to view women in the past as passive and that only men were hunters, but increasingly that doesn’t seem to be the case,” Bebber said. “Indeed, and perhaps most importantly, there seems to be a growing reconciliation between the different fields (archaeology, ethnography, and now modern experiments) that the women were probably active and successful hunters, large and small.”
Since 2019, every semester, Bebber has taken his class outside to use the atlatl. He found that the females picked it up very easily and could dart as far as the males with little effort.
“Often the boys would get frustrated because they would push themselves too hard and try to use their strength to throw the darts,” Bebber said. “However, since the atlatl functions as a simple lever, reduces the advantage of the greater muscular strength generally male.
“Since women appear to benefit more from wearing the atlatl, it is certainly within the realm of possibility that in some contexts women invented the atlatl,” Bebber said. “In the same way, in some primate species, females invent tool technologies for huntingas documented among Fongoli chimpanzees”.
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