Sarosh wrote on Aug 18
th, 2022 at 1:59am:
Hirtius wrote on Aug 17
th, 2022 at 11:51pm:
Native Americans used small darts in later periods, smaller than hobbyists do
what length and mass did they have?
The masses typically aren’t listed. However, it’s likely from my experience that shorter darts require an even smaller diameter to bend properly.
One from Yukon around 6,000 years ago noted for using castoreum from a beaver butt was 1.5 meters.
Another from Utah in the White Dog Cave around 2,000 years ago was 1.4 meters.
There are probably many other examples. Although I’m generalizing a bit since there are relatively few surviving darts, the point sizes seem to support this as well since they also decrease over time. It’s often difficult to tell where dart points stop and arrow points begin.
For reference, modern hobbyists rarely seem to go below 6 ft. (1.8 meters). In Ryan Gill’s videos, he even uses darts up to 9 ft (2.7 meters).
Edit:
I spoke too soon, here’s a 2.2 meter dart and 1.84 meter dart from the Yukon.
https://worldatlatl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Grohsmeyer-Yukon-darts.pdf