3 ms·

I'm surprised the article didn't mention the atlatl which would have been the true historic answer to "how far did cavemen throw spears?" https://en.wikipedia.

• pseudo0 5y ago
  It does mention the ankyle, a leather strap that served a similar purpose by increasing the effective length of the throwing arm. I guess some cavemen used ankyles and others used atlatls?
  • tk75x 5y ago
    "booster in the form of a leather thong, called an ankyle, that would set the javelin spinning, getting it to fly further." Sounds like they just used it to wrap around the javelin to give it a spin like you would a spinning top with a string.
    • pseudo0 5y ago
      Neat, that does make more sense actually. Pretty impressive that the spin from a piece of leather would add 58% to the flight distance though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amentum