Hi
Some years ago I persuaded a friend that is a carpenter for making an ash wood longbow, the same type as the English Medival war longbow. That bow was really terrible as we broke at hte first shot our homemade arrows we used a wooden mop pole as an arrow. The bow was so powerful that it worked. We made it go through a 20mm chipboard.
The problem was that the wood was fresh and not very well seasoned and it bended more and more with use until the bow became a circle.
Some years later my friend bought a 60 lbs. compound bow but it was a nightmare. When you buy a compound bow you begin to spend more and more money in things that the bow need. It is really very expensive. As I am a poor man I always shooted with a bow that someone lent me.
I am not enough tough (or hungry) to be a hunter, so I don't know very much about it. In Nothamerica you have dangerous animals that are a dream for hunters, not like here that the deers we have are the size of a goat and the animals are raised and hand-fed for hunting (I'm sorry but they are not actually wild, some are like pets left alone in the country and even they approach to you asking for food). I have read in a book about bowhunting that you must shoot not very far (the farthest about 30m). A range that I think that someone can almost reach with an atlatl. The main difference is that with a bow the shooted animal don't know what happens and with an atlatl it can charge on you as it can see you moving your arm and body, if not, it will run away when you begin to throw or perhaps it can avoid the dart as it flies slower than an arrow.
Watching this videos I think that if they had used an atlatl they could have killed the moose. What I am not so sure is that if the moose could have charged dangerously.
http://youtu.be/c_6RH6u5_1Qhttp://youtu.be/2433vrL8qVshttp://youtu.be/gZ5JDXhWvVwExcuse me if I am wrong.
I miss the Pleistocene megafauna too. Specially sabre-toothed cats.
Greetings.