It is believed the sling originates with the earliest homo sapiens, even Neanderthals, although it's hard to prove other than knowing their skill set was sufficient to make a sling.  There is that neolithic (could be paleolithic, someone have dating on the art?) cave painting of a supposed slinger. 

I have been thinking about the weapon development sling, and I think it evolved in this fashion:

- The first projectile was the rock, thrown by hand.

- People realized that if a cord was attached to it, greater force and range could be gained. (a kind of tethered rock, like those balls with streamers).  However, cord was time consuming to make and people would have to carry many of these during a hunt, and possibly lose them. 

- The tethered rock evolved into the bola (same weapon, but rocks at both ends, and possibly more than one set), effectively used to bring down quadruped animals by wrapping up their feet.

- The sling would seem like a logical step from the tethered rock.  The physical ideas behind that of a sling (pouch opening up to release the rock tangentially) seems like one step ahead developentally, and would come naturally after experience with the tethered rock.  It was essentially the same weapon, but reusable.  Because the weapon was used repeatedly by an individual, like a bow, the quality and design development would have grown quickly (cord quality and type, pouch type, even projectiles), into what is todays standard sling.   

Chris

I'm not an expert, but it seems to me that any attempt to follow the trail of the early development of the sling runs into a difficulty: the lack of direct evedences, due to the fact that the organic materials the slings are made of do not resist the passage of time. Therefore, we can just work with indirect evidences and our own imagination.

Nevertheless, I agree with the evolution process proposed by Crhis. But I would like to add a feeling of mine: that the sling was, just from the beginning, a weapon for the defense against other humans, and not just for hunting. Many professors of Prehistory notice, from the exploration of the human remains of that time, that a lot of people died from traumatisms, specially in the head. I bet a lot of those traumatisms were caused by a sling.

Foner.

I am fairly certain that the tethered rock was a weapon used universally, or at least wherever the sling has been found, due to the fact that the tethered rock, being simply a rock on a string, is an ancestor of the bolas, which is itself an ancestor of the sling.  Ergo, it is not a weapon used only in north America.

The aborigines did not know about bows, either.  I think many cultures represent how our culture was before, eg, native Americn culture represents a very advanced stone age culture, such as Europeans were in the Neolithic, whereas the Australian aborigines represent how Europeans were in the earlier stages of development, in the Paleolithic, for example.  By such a means we can look at how our ancestors lived.  If only we had not progressed as we have.  Perhaps we would still be looking at an inhabitable world in the future.  Thanks to modern culture, in particular, the new found (by which I mean, in the last four thousand years +) wastefulness of humanity, fuel emissions and consumer driven life, we are going to basically screw the earth within a few generations.  *sigh*

LOL!  Funny thing is, I can't see the 'nose'.   

I believe the aborigines arrival to Oz is between 20,000 to 30,000 years ago depending on who you talk to.  One guess was 60,000 years ago. Supposedly, a slow, coastal migration took place out of Africa, across Arabia, the Indian shoreline and into Indonesia. From there they went island hopping to Oz.  Does anyone know if the sling was developed by anyone along that route? It might help to cement the theory.

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I´ve seen single bolas ( or bola perdida) from Argentina XIX century, and even archeological ones from Sudamerica dated more than 12,000 years, but I´ve never seen that  thing named "tethered rock", that I suppose is an irregular stone tied to a cord. Is a real thing or is a concept or general idea? There are some archeological specimen somewere?

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Yes, is very posible but not necessary. I can imagine other weapons evolution, for instance: first, the man throw stones by hand. Second, he notice than rounded stones were better grasped and more accuratelly thrown. Third, he noticed that was a pity to lost frecuently this well worked and rounded stones and decided to tied them to a long string so that he can recover them and throw again in a few seconds. And we have the single bola very near yet, without pass for the tethered "rock".

Nevertheless, there is an archaeological objet called "lithic polyedron" that exist from european Paleolithic and wich real use is not known and not even suggested for the archaeologist, but that may have been used as the predecessor of single bola. This is also my guess.
I asked after the actual existence of tethered rocks because sometimes I´ve heard of them in a northamerican context, and suppossed it was even an actual weapon seen for pioneers in the hands of natives.

The "tethered rock" is basically just a one stone bolas. 

And I agree with most of what Dan says about aborigines and slings; most of the people in the world at that time would have been concentrated in the belt he tells us of.  So, it fits that if one group discovered the sling, other groups would, and we would see that aborigines had the sling.  That they didn't gives us a date for first use of the sling, which is basically anywhere upwards of 40,000 years ago, which is an absolutely massive timeframe.  Most of the weapons used nowadays were developed about a century ago, basic gun designs being developed in the fourteenth century.  So the sling seems so venerable.  Makes me love slinging even more.