Slings can be made very well without cordage. There are plenty of Native American slings with leather pouches and leather thong cords, sewn together with sinew.

Search for 'sling' here: http://anthro.amnh.org/north

We might add to the list the depiction of a slinger on the Mycaenean siege rhyton from the 16th cent. BC (http://classics.unc.edu/courses/clar244/MycSgRhyt.jpg) and stored slingstones found, if I am not mistaken, in Troy VII, dating around 1200-1000 BC.

Both are mentioned by Korfmann (http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/troia/st/two/ab/english/ab7eng.html ; would be great if someone could find the whole article, as I have only access to the abstract at the moment).

What is the earliest evidence for use of the atlatl ? Alina ?

If we relate throwing spears to the atlatl, the oldest evidences are 4 wooden javelins discovered in Schoningen, Germany and dating to 400'000 b.C.
Greetings,
Mauro.

Mauro Fiorentini wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2012 at 6:40am:


Schoningen is unrelated to the atlatl, and also unrelated to slinging.  The closest relationship you can find is that some modern people like to throw schoningen spears with an amentum, but this is purely speculative and not based on any extant archaeological evidence.  In fact, there is much debate over where they were actually thrown spears or not.

Oh, and while I'm on a posting spree, let me add my two cents in here.  I think slings were primarily developed, not for shepherds guarding flocks, but as weapons for warfare.  I think slings coincide with warfare and that they have little use in hunting contexts.

Mauro Fiorentini wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2012 at 10:59am:


Doing well, Mauro!  I hope you're okay too.

I should add, and this isn't directed at you, that I think we're barking up the wrong tree when we compare slings and atlatls.  If you look at cultures with atlatls, slings are either rarely-used toys, or they're non-existent.  And if you look at cultures with slings, you don't tend to find atlatls.  It's not an either or deal, of course.  Slings were common in Peru, and the estolica, or atlatl, also existed.  Slings were used from time to time amongst the Inuit.  The list of exceptions could go on.  But if you look at these cultures, they have a fundamental focus on one or the other.  Slings are not commonly used weapons in the arctic - not compared to harpoons and throwing boards and bows.  Slings are unheard of in Australia.  Similarly, in Polynesia, there is no evidence for atlatls, despite ample evidence for thrown spears.  And in the Peruvian context, the estolica predominated in the coastal areas of the country, while the sling predominated in the highlands of the Andes.

I think slings and atlatls have just one thing in common - they act as levers which amplify the force of the arm.  However, that's pretty much all they have in common.  The technology needed to make a good slingstone is wildly different from that needed to make a good atlatl dart, and the same goes for the slings and atlatls themselves.  Moreover, the weapons lend themselves better to different ecological niches.  You would use a sling in a dense rainforest, or from a boat trying to hit a sea lion, just as you'll have far better luck in terms of range with a sling than you will with an atlatl in open places.  And, above the tree line, slings will have more ammunition.

So, I propose as an alternative to looking at atlatls for the development of slings, that we look to rocks.  See, people took up throwing sticks pretty early in their development (by 400,000 BP at least), but they also threw rocks.  We don't have archaeological evidence for it, as unmodified rocks leave no human trail behind.  However, there are modified hand-cast throwing rocks on many islands in the Pacific region especially, and these have entered the ethnographic record as such.  This suggests that people began shaping throwing rocks before they developed the sling, and that shaped slingstones flowed naturally from a behavior that was already being practiced.  I think the search for the earliest origins of slings begins with the search for modified throwing rocks.

That looks like pressure flaking around the base, with some edge retouch that may or may not be pressure flaking.  What's a neolithic point doing in a paleolithic site?