What do you guy think? which one would you be more scared of in a fight?
a short stick thats hurling 8 feet darts are your head, or an english longbow bow shooting 1-2ft whistling arrows at your head?
i think its a draw, both are murderous, seeing as atlatl's took on mammoths, and the english longbow reportedly shot through 6 inches of an oak door at 200 yrds.

Bow, because the guy shooting at me would have more arrows than darts, and more retries if he misses!

there's no question that, in a general sense, the bow is the more efficient weapon, but people greatly underestimate the atlatl both in accuracy and power. just a couple of weeks ago i and several other atlatlists proved just how close the two actually are by competing alongside several hundred archers in a rigorous 50 target 3D course. we not only held our own but out did a good portion of them. here's a link to some pics of that weekend...http://paleoplanet69529.yuku.com/topic/34873

also bear in kind that mammoths were hunted with altatls not bows :-)

Any culture that developed the bow abandoned the atlatl.    As Paleoarts says, it's just a more efficient weapon.
That being said, I wouldn't want to take a hit from an atlatl dart....The heavy shaft would drive a flint or obsidian point deep.

Curious Aardvark wrote on May 9^th, 2010 at 11:46am:

also bear in kind that mammoths were hunted with altatls not bows :-)

Isn't that more because the mammoth predates the bow? ;-)
I have no doubt that a bow would kill a mammoth.
Haven't found one around to try it on yet but
I'll let you know when I do. I do however have
A dvd where fred bear shoots an elephant with a 75
Pound recurve. The arrow buries just almost to the nock side
Of the fletching into the beast. Fred bear's broadheads
Were designed to do maximum damage but that limited penetration
Somewhat. The atlatl is still an amazingly effective weapon though.
The difference in construction time too. Atlatl and dart: one hour.
Good bow and arrow: at least a day if you already have dry wood.

I would rather my opponent had an atlatl; we are at least 60 feet apart and I get to fight back using my long bow ;)

walter

you're not safe from the atlatl at 60 ft. several of us were hitting targets consistantly at 40-50 yards during that competition.

Paleoarts wrote on May 9^th, 2010 at 12:15pm:

you're not safe from the atlatl at 60 ft. several of us were hitting targets consistantly at 40-50 yards during that competition.

Paleo, wasn't thinking the shooter couldn't hit. Was thinking the darts have slowed enough to dodge 'em. But remember, Woonilsra called this a fight. I get to shoot too! I'm using my long bow and at 60+ feet there will be two arrows in the air.  ;D

walter

The Bow took over from the Atlatl so logically the Bow is deadlier. Also, the Bow is a longer range weapon and generally more accurate too.

again, i think you guys are underestimating the atlatl. i can load and throw darts accurately just as fast or faster than most archers can knock and fire arrows. Tom Mills and i proved this at the competition. they had a timed shoot and we were able to get off around ten to twelve aimed darts in twenty seconds compared to the experienced archers in our group who averaged only six to eight.

also, for the average bow of 35-45 lbs, the range is about the same but the atlatl dart has a definite advantage in penetrating power. it isn't until you see the atlatl in the hands of an experienced user that you really begin to appreciate its effectivness. i will conceed that the bow overall is more effective, but the race is a lot closer than some of you might imagine.

walter wrote on May 9^th, 2010 at 12:26pm:

Paleo, wasn't thinking the shooter couldn't hit. Was thinking the darts have slowed enough to dodge 'em. But remember, Woonilsra called this a fight. I get to shoot too! I'm using my long bow and at 60+ feet there will be two arrows in the air.  ;D walter

trust me, you can't dodge an atlatl dart any easier than you can an arrow. at 100fps+ they are coming at you fast!

Wild guess, but if bow and arrow technology improved, and the mammoths, woolly rhino`s and other HUGE pray that "required" atlatl`s went extinct, and maybe the forests grew denser, it`s not all that strange the  bow and arrow became what most people preferred.
I know what I would prefer to carry around :)
timann

If after bunnies at 40 yards bow; mega fauna at 20 yards atlatl. Bow is a much longer ranged weapon.
while I was still shooting I was consistently able to hit a torso type of target at 100 yards on an indoor range. It wasn't a small group by any means but most arrows were in the torso.

Paleoarts wrote on May 9^th, 2010 at 12:52pm:

walter wrote on May 9th, 2010 at 12:26pm: Paleo, wasn't thinking the shooter couldn't hit. Was thinking the darts have slowed enough to dodge 'em. But remember, Woonilsra called this a fight. I get to shoot too! I'm using my long bow and at 60+ feet there will be two arrows in the air.  ;D walter trust me, you can't dodge an atlatl dart any easier than you can an arrow. at 100fps+ they are coming at you fast!

I do trust your info on atlatls ;D After I posted about dodging darts and putting a couple arrows in the air before the first hit, I realized you probably could do better than that. Especially with what I call your auto loader atlatls. The style with a groove all the way to the spur.

Had no idea darts travel 100+. Figured that by sixty feet, they would be slowing way down.

My one great hope here is that I'm not fighting with one of the worlds best atlatlists ;D as i'm still putting my faith in the longbow.

walter

i would agree with you, Walter. given the choice in a fight to the finish, i would take the bow as well, but i wouldn't be over confident. the atlatl in the hands of an experienced user is a deadly scary prospect.

Quote:

The Bow took over from the Atlatl so logically the Bow is deadlier.

Not logical reasoning.

Bows are easier to learn to use, therefore bows make more sense. They also have the range on an atlatl - and slings have range on bows.
But that does not necessarily make bows deadlier. Dead is dead, an atlatl will kill you just as dead as an arrow - or a sling bullet come to that.

Bows are 'idiot' weapons. as in 'any idiot can learn to use one'.
Slings and atlatls require much longer training, higher skill  and more practice periods to become effective.

At the end of the day at 100 yards a long bow trumps an atlatl.

who hear can hit a human target at 200 yards with a bow? the bow is an idiot weapon in that it can easily be shot.
skill, on the other hand, is deadly. getting an arrow in a human target at 200 yards- good luck to you if your versing this guy

atlatl, the advantages i see to it are intimidation factor. an 8 foot dart sounds a lot worse than a foot or two arrow. and atlatls are easy to make. the one i use took all of 10 minutes, darts are the hard part, but from what ive read, they can fly 200 yards, right?

the way i see it, the archer wins, since its easier to aim with a bow than an atlatl. otherwise, i see it as a fair fight.

a good analogy is this...a bow is like a .223 rifle with a twenty round magazine. small, light, accurate out to a decent range. the atlatl is like a .45 pistol. limited ammo and range, but just as high rate of fire or better, just as accurate at shorter ranges, and much more stopping power.

this isn't perfect since the atlatl has nearly the effective range as most bows, and most arrows have nearly the same killing potential as darts. in my opinion it's more about user skill than it is equipment.

its almost always user skill, id say that goes without saying,
thats why here we need to compare the weapons

 I do believe the bow to be more deadly, if it is assuming that we are talking about a high poundage longbow.  One thing I will say though, is that a bow is easier to shoot accurately than an atlatl and has greater range, not necessarily that the atlatl is less deadly if it were to connect.  I would say that this would all depend who was wielding the weapons, in the right hands a bow is very deadly, and so is an atlatl, and so is a sling.  A expert slinger could easily compete with a mediocre archer in deadly combat.

I would be too busy running for cover, in a zig zag pattern as unpredictably as possible, to give too much thought to wheter it´s bow arrows or atlatl darts whizzing towards me...

This really depends. A basket shield can stop arrows fairly reliably, those things are surprisingly effective at that. An atlatl dart can get the guy standing behind it. If I had one of those, then the atlatl is a scarier prospect.

That said, you can carry more arrows than darts, so without that factor or similar, the bow is suddenly more dangerous.

I would definately rather face a noob with a atlatl than one with a bow.  That said, I wouldn't want to face of with Paleoarts unless he had a nerf bow ;)

A hit from an atlatl dart would be worse than a hit from an arrow. That´s what I think anyway.
Some bows from the peruvian rainforest shoots 2 meter arrows, which are capable of going through multiple bodies.  

If I were hunting a large dangerous animal, I would rather have a group of atlatlists with me than archers

Not only do they (atlatls) have considerably more destructive force/penetration, but I think they might be a little quicker on the initial draw, less tiring to hold at ready

A better question is whose hands the weapons are in rather than the weapon its self.  Weapons are just objects, it's whether it's in the hands of a master.  I'd rather a bow because I've practice extensively with it.   I've probably thrown a dart less than 1000 times.

One advantage of the bow would be that it's a better ambush weapon because of less movement.  While I hope I never have to try to dodge an atlatl dart, ducking as the man throws the dart (based on the motion of the arm) would be easier than ducking an arrow as the archer releases the string.  

On the otherhand, the man with the atlatl can keep his arm cocked and ready to throw while the archer can't realisticly keep a bow drawn for more than a minute

For me, if I'm hunting a 2,000lbs  bull, I'd take the atlatl.  For a 150lbs deer, a bow.  For the neighbor's dog who digs in my garden, a sling and a tennis ball.

I would rather face someone with an atlatl than with a longbow.  The longbow has a greater range, and is generally easier to use than an atlatl, from what I've read here.  I've never used either, though I did shoot a fiberglass bow quite a bit as a kid.  That said, if I had to get hit with one or the other I'd fear an atlatl dart more than an arrow because it's so much bigger.  

also, the atlatl takes a bit longer time to load, so you have some time to get ahead to more cover, dodge his dart, go to cover, dodge his dart, go to cover. he eventually runs out of darts, or your too close for him to do anything except use the atlatl as a light club.

xxkid123 wrote on May 12^th, 2010 at 3:56pm:

also, the atlatl takes a bit longer time to load, so you have some time to get ahead to more cover, dodge his dart, go to cover, dodge his dart, go to cover. he eventually runs out of darts, or your too close for him to do anything except use the atlatl as a light club.

I bet a practised atlatl shooter can reload as least as fast as it takes to nock an arrow. Secondly you talk about dodging at least two darts while running towards your attacker, the range gets pretty much point blank... Thirdly in the unlikely event you are not dead yet, reaching your attacker, hoping he brought only two darts, he might stab you with his third (that is not a lot of ammo) 6 foot long dart...
There is a word for your plan; "superhero syndrom" ;)

the atlatl is MUCH faster to reload and shoot. see above.

A few months ago I took a class on building and using atlatl from the school www.Practical Primitive.com.  It was an all day class on the Atlatl.  I was amazed at this weapon.  The simplicity in making it was only rivaled by its power.  We each made our own atlatl and then used "practice" darts.  Basically 4-5 foot pieces of bamboo with no tip and duct tape fletching.  You would not believe the distant we were launching these darts, at least as far as an arrow with a bow.  Keep in mind these were not practice darts.  A well designed and made dart would have went farther.  Throughout our practice one of us hit a wooden fence post (about 4"x4") the blunt dart knocked a chunk of wook from the post.  This was from a distance of about 25-30 yards.  There is definitely some power behind the atlatl.  My accuracy was terrible but this was my first time with an atlatl by the end of the day I could hit the foam deer targe from about 20 yards.  I am more comfortable with the bow because I have used one a lot more, but I definitely do not short change the atlatl.  Think of the bow as an arrow launcher and the atlatl a spear launcher.  I will try and get a picture up of the atlatl I made.

It's too late for me now to find a photo, but it shows a wild pig with two darts in it's side - the second dart was launched by the same hunter quick enough that they have almost identical entry angle -> the pig didn't have the time to either move much, or even tip over.

If you think you can dodge that, I'd like to see it. :P

Here's some pics of the atlatl I made.  I still need to get the wood stained.

[url]http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab261/sharpdogs_photos/atlatl.jpg[/url]

[url]http://i870.photobucket.com/albums/ab261/sharpdogs_photos/atlatl2.jpg[/url]

wrote on May 13^th, 2010 at 9:27am:

he might stab you with his third (that is not a lot of ammo) 6 foot long dart... There is a word for your plan; "superhero syndrom" ;)

Or clobber him over the head with the atlatl itself  ;)

That's a very interesting atlatl you got there Sharpdogs! Never seen one quite like that  before.

walter

Nice atlatl. That's red oak right? Mine's not that nice it's made
Out of pvc pipe.

very nice, sharpdogs! why don't you post that in the 'let's see your atlatl' thread.

Paleoarts wrote on May 14^th, 2010 at 11:27am:

very nice, sharpdogs! why don't you post that in the 'let's see your atlatl' thread.

As soon as I get a few coats of stain on it I will.  Your work is amazing, it is part of the reason why I took the class in the first place.  My neighbor just gave me some scrap wood which is perfect for making some more atlatls.

theres another point, atlatls can be made extremely fast and still very deadly. as far as i know, it takes a while to make a good bow beacuse of seasoning the wood, and i dobt a bundle bow will beat an atlatl

I reckon the bow is the best, and history bears this out. Two greatest advantages of the bow are:

Ease of use - the atlatl has a steep learning curve to achieve accuracy and its easy to screw up your shot under pressure e.g. 'buck fever' or war.

Speed to target - the bow can reach about twice as far in the time it takes for an animal to react and start moving. This makes hunting much easier because you will get many more shooting opportunities.  

my cousin did make light metal arrows with holes along the length (the holes were shaped in a paricular way) but the effect when fired into a dead cow was horrific the holes were filled with flesh and it acted like a cheese grater. For use against a person with light or no armour it would be devistating the head of the arrow was shaped so as to be hard to remove and as it was hollow quite a bit of blood pumped out of the end. Now the point to all that was being metal albeit some light metal it traveled a drasticly shorter distance than a normal arrow, if a similar atlatl dart was made then the increased power behind it would probably make this a viable design. But the dart may need to be shortened.

Since both projectiles are easily capable of killing a person, penetration doesn't seem to be an issue unless they are wearing armor. But since this is just a question of these two weapons I'm assuming no armor is in play.  Speed of the projectile, versatility and ease of aiming in a combat situation would come more into play. With that in mind I would choose the bow.

If I had to choose which one to actually be hit by I would choose the bow, as the severe oscillation on an atlatl dart would make a pretty terrifying wound no matter where you were hit. An arrow from a heavy bow on the other hand would have a good chance of simply passing through and if no major arteries or organs were hit you should heal up fairly well.

I thought once about the oscillation of the atlatl dart that it has so much amplitude that I can imagine that it's point at massive penetration would cut in zigzag.Would this be possible?

jlasud wrote on Oct 27^th, 2010 at 3:03pm:

I thought once about the oscillation of the atlatl dart that it has so much amplitude that I can imagine that it's point at massive penetration would cut in zigzag.Would this be possible?

Wonder if Paleo will take a shot at that one? The only thing I wonder about is how fast the oscillation is relative to it's speed. It may be that the tip would pass through the body before much oscillation occurred although I think even a little would create a fairly devastating wound. If it didn't pass through I'm guessing it would do more damage then an arrow at least if not much more. All conjecture of course, I know practically nothing about atlatl...  ;D

I think the atlatl is more deadly because a 8 ounce dart has ALOT of penetration on a animal. More so than a bow. Even though I would rather hunt with a bow

I am not an expert but I have hunted and killed game with both the bow and the atlatl and darts.  If you are hunting out of a treestand with your target almost directly below, the atlatl is better.  Unless you are using a really heavy bow, the spine will usually stop an arrow, the steep downward angle also usually prevents a pass through, so your blood trail is really poor.  Also, it is difficult to come to full draw at a steep downward angle.  On level ground, or uphill,  the bow is better.  You have to make a lot less movement with a bow.  You can also shoot a bow while sitting down or tucked in next to a tree.  Effective range is about the same, the bow will let you have about 5 more yards.  No one mentioned fishing, the atlatl/dart is better for larger fish, sharks and armored targets such as alligators and turtles.  Bows are good for shallow water, atlatls will let you get fish that are much deeper.  Heavy brush screws up both, you can't throw and even if you can, it still deflects the dart.  Moving through the brush is about the same, both are a PITA but can be done.  I usually use a bow for whitetail deer and an atlatl/dart for feral hogs.  One last thing, a bow can easily be used to hunt small game, it can be done with an atlatl/dart but not easily.  That was one of the reasons I looked into slinging.  Bill    

I would say atlatl, but it takes more practice.

colejack3 wrote on Oct 27^th, 2010 at 7:11pm:

I think the atlatl is more deadly because a 8 ounce dart has ALOT of penetration on a animal. More so than a bow. Even though I would rather hunt with a bow

Compared to what kind of bow?  I've talked with a few hunters that had arrows go completely through and exit something the size of a deer.  Of course, this doesn't make the animal extra dead, but it's impressive, and cautionary about standing close to other bow hunters.  

Well i meant like this, Would you rather have a 1/2 inch 8 ounce 7 foot long dart sticking out of you or a skinny 600 grain arrow?

Well if you're gonna make me choose, then neither thanks.  In all practicality, both are equally deadly.  Both are capable of putting a shaft through a deer size target.  Any thing beyond going all the way throug is just bragging rights.  

I agree.  Dead is dead, no matter what kills you, whether it's a bow, atlatl dart, sword, slingstone, or the panther that was stalking you while you were stalking that deer.  Also, it depends on the skill level of the person using the weapon.  I could kill you with a bow pretty easily, but I would have no idea on how to even hold an atlatl.  Both are just as deadly, but the circumstances determine who dies and who survives (to be killed by a panther).