This is to announce that ca. Oct. 15, 2011, a book that my wife and I have written, Slings and Slingstones, The Forgotten Weapons of Oceania and the Americas, will be published by Kent State U. Press. It can now be pre-ordered, see p. 16 of the KSU Press 2011 catalog at www.kentstateuniversitypress.com. Or, actually we've found that just Googling "Gigi Robert York Slings" generates many relevant links.    
 
In doing our research the Slinging.org site and Chris Harrison were of considerable help to us, which we acknowledge in our book.
 
Our book primarily is written with an archaeological/anthropological audience in mind (natch, that's our background) but we believe (immodestly) that it contains much of interest for all w/an interest. We think it addresses many of the ?s we have seen in the Forum -- especially, of course, concerning Oceania and the Americas -- and/or supplies plenty of grist for discussion and debate.    

RE: Sling in Australia? I will resist saying "wait and read the book and see what you think".  Don't you like surprises?  But the answer is, we very much looked into Australia and found no evidence it was ever used there -- at least not aboriginally.  This, of course, also goes for the bow & arrow. The woomera (atlatl in the New World) or spear thrower was the projectile weapon of Australia's native peoples thruout its long prehistory, reaching back to 1st settlement some 60,000 years ago.  Now this doesn't mean there wasn't lots of rather lethal hand throwing of rocks, particularly this behavior was witnessed by the early European explorers of Tasmania. All this raises lots of intriguing ?s for archaeologists and anthros., that as far as we know havn't been addressed much.           

You're an author willing to answer questions! Alright, you just earned yourself a reader.

looked at the catalogue and it doesn't mention either a price or the number of pages in the book.  
prosaic things i know, but given the usual cost of limited edition academic textbooks - it's always useful to have some idea of pages per buck when considering ordering one

 Haha. You beat me to it! I'm hoping to get a master's thesis done this spring on sling experimentation and I've always had this little fantasy that I'd be one of the first to introduce the topic to North American archaeologists. Congratulations on the new book and I hope to read it soon!
 
  I've run across a lot of stuff on trephining in the Pacific islands and Peru, were you able to incorporate that data in the book?

Short delay on publication. You all may have noticed that Oct. 15 has come and gone and our book still is not out. Our publisher, Kent State U. Press, info'd that it's essentially ready to print, except the cover design still needs to be completed. They did not give us a new target date for publication but it should not be too much longer.  Again, of course, it is available for pre-order thru various outlets (KSU Press, Amazon, etc.).

great job  
 
hope my local libraries might carry it.

That's a good question, since, obviously, we're interested to know what's up w/our book too I checked with KSU Press, to quote their rep: "We're in the process of binding and distributing as we speak." I take that to mean it should be available shortly -- it better be -- maybe yet this week and hopefully no later then next week.  Concerning price, the lowest price I've seen is Amazon's. But check various sites, maybe someone has a better deal. I noted a previously posted comment to the effect that they hoped their library would obtain it. I would suggest to all you can help that happen by bringing it to the attention of your friendly librarians for acquisition -- forgive the shameless self-promotion.