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Atlatl Angelo Robledo and Experimental Archaeology - Ep 23
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In this episode, we virtually sit down with Experimental Archaeologist, Angelo Robledo. Join us as we hear about Angelo's passions, his archaeology origin story, and atlatl construction!
Links
- Angelo's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/idigit1st/
- World Atlatl Association: https://worldatlatl.org/
- WAA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worldatlatlassociation/
Contact
- Show
- Twitter: @idigitpodcast
- Email: [email protected]
- Alyssa
- Instagram: aal.archaeology
- Twitter: Lyssakemi
- Michaela
- Instagram: mm_digitalized
- Twitter: m_mauriello
Affiliates
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to iDicket Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You're listening to the iDicket Podcast, a podcast where we talk about the student perspective of navigating the world of archaeology and anthropology. I'm your host, Michaela. And I'm your host, Alyssa. Welcome here to today's episode.
Meet Angelo Robledo
00:00:24
Speaker
We have Angelo. How do you pronounce your last name?
00:00:28
Speaker
It's Robledo. Robledo. We have Angel Robledo here. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. So we connected with Angelo because he submitted a bunch of photos to our iDigit podcast Instagram feature. And his little bios that he had in those sounded really cool. So we reached out and wanted to know more about his experience. And here he is.
00:00:56
Speaker
Here I am. Yeah, I've been a fan of your podcast for a bit. It's been so cool to learn or hear more about kind of the academia route in archaeology from the student perspective. And it's honestly helped me and kind of given me some more insights into what I want to do or what I want to go to grad school after graduating. And your discord is a lot of fun as well. So super excited to be on. Awesome. Thank you.
00:01:25
Speaker
So tell us, tell us a little bit about what you're doing now, where you are, what's your program, that sort of stuff. So I am in my fourth year of my undergraduate degree, double majoring in anthropology and philosophy at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And I
00:01:44
Speaker
within that, you know, focusing on archaeology, obviously, after being on this podcast, I'm not a linguist or a cultural anthropologist, but I've been interested in archaeology since I was in kindergarten and kind of told my parents then that that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and actually stuck with it. And, and here I am. So it's kind of been a fun ride. It changed a little bit. There's times I wanted to do other things, but for whatever reason, I always came back around to archaeology and
Angelo's Archaeological Journey
00:02:12
Speaker
Specifically, experimental archaeology has been really fascinating for me. So I had a great opportunity to get in touch with an experimental archaeologist at the university I go to when I was in high school, and that kind of helped guide me into the decision to go there and work with her and some of her grad students in her lab and do some experimental work there, along with my own kind of side projects with at-lattles and footnapping and other stuff that I do. So that's kind of where I am right now.
00:02:42
Speaker
Hopefully graduating, well, not hopefully, I am graduating soon, and then hopefully going to grad school afterwards. But I know I might take a gap year in between undergrad and grad school. That's awesome. Yeah. I think I'm a big believer in gap years, so it gives you a chance to figure out what you want to do with your life. I don't think Michaela did gap year, but I did before master's program.
00:03:11
Speaker
I mean, I technically had like a whole semester in between cause I was done in like the fall semester, but I was already like applied to and accepted to the master's program. So I was just working pretty lucky. Do you have any idea of like what sort of program you're looking for for grad school? Uh, so I'm kind of gone back and forth a little bit. Uh, for the longest time I was pretty set on like,
00:03:40
Speaker
hardcore academia route immediately go master's PhD. But I kind of fell out of favor with that in the last probably year and instead really want to pursue something that allows me to engage with public communication and science outreach a lot more. So I think the new plan hopefully is a career in education somehow. Maybe even museum education would be kind of the
00:04:07
Speaker
the dream because I think it combines the best of everything that I'm interested in. And particularly there are some experimental archaeology master's programs in Europe that I would be really interested in specifically at University College of Dublin. So there's some really interesting programs there and they have amazing facilities, the CMAC facility, the I think that's their acronym for it if I remember correctly. But kind of just like the
00:04:37
Speaker
section of forest where they do a lot of experimental archaeology work and they build structures and do kind of large scale projects that you wouldn't be able to do almost anywhere else because you don't have the space to do them.
Fascination with Atlatls
00:04:49
Speaker
So those kind of programs really interest me. Plus, I kind of like these almost modular aspects of the European master's program. So there's a lot of like one year master's and very specific focuses. So hopefully I can do something in experimental archaeology and then maybe museum studies or education.
00:05:07
Speaker
And then hopefully go into that career afterwards, but we'll see I have a lot of time ahead of me before I can get there. Yeah, our University of York for our master's program had an experimental archaeology department also and they had a
00:05:24
Speaker
Big plot of land on campus where they would do various experiments. I never got did you ever get to go there Mikayla? I never got home. I walk by it. Yeah Yeah, I think they call it the year Center. Yeah, we look into that as well. It is super awesome So yeah, both of those schools have really really incredible experimental archaeology programs
00:05:47
Speaker
Amazing. Well, we can put you in contact with some of our experimental archeologists if you're interested. That would be pretty amazing, especially, like I said, I was starting for the grad school application process. Yeah. So it's, it's coming up.
00:06:03
Speaker
We had one of our classmates on the podcast super early, I think one of the first five episodes. Yeah, Jessie, she did experimental archaeology and her dissertation was on making ancient cider from apples. Yeah, like little crab apples.
00:06:24
Speaker
I remember really, really enjoying that episode early on in the podcast. I was like, oh, this is exactly what I want to do and where I want to go. So that's kind of perfect. But yeah, those kind of, I mean, I just love the hands-on aspect of experimental archaeology. It's so
00:06:41
Speaker
I think I kind of just get transported a little bit more and it feels a little more immersive where you can really experience like, okay, well, how hard is it to flip that something like very hard? Yeah, very unbelievable. Oh, you don't just like stick one thing to another and it makes something just like you just hit it once. Yeah, it's
World Atlatl Association Involvement
00:07:02
Speaker
crazy. It really is wild and that you just have so much more appreciation for and bloody. Yeah. So appreciation for kind of the genius of
00:07:12
Speaker
of the early hominids who figured this out. It's kind of incredible that through trial and error, they were able to develop these really, really complex tools that we, not we, but a lot of society considers, you know, primitive or simplistic. And it's like, no, if you actually try to do it yourself, you realize it's a lot harder to think. Like to see you make it. Exactly. Exactly. I know.
00:07:38
Speaker
in that time with what's successful to you. What got you interested in experimental archaeology, specifically the atlatls? Okay, yeah, I figured I would come up at some point. So, well, like I said, I got into archaeology in kindergarten, and I think I kind of immediately gravitated towards experimental archaeology. So what happened was I had read like a historical fiction book about life in ancient Egypt, and
00:08:05
Speaker
my elementary school librarian turned me on to nonfiction books or, you know, information books written for children about more, you know, realistic real life stuff. And that kind of set me down a rabbit hole because I was a really big reader as a kid. So I spent probably two or three years doing nothing but reading just Egyptology type stuff and watching Egyptology programs. And I had a family friend who bought a box set of
00:08:33
Speaker
some Egyptology, DVD, like documentary type stuff. And in one of these documentaries, they had an experimental archaeologist talk about reconstructing Egyptian composite bows and Egyptian copashers, which are those curved sickle swords. And that was, I think it was in first grade, first or second grade. And I was just immediately like, that is so cool. Like this person's job is to recreate and test
00:09:00
Speaker
old weapons and tools. That seems like the coolest possible career path anyone could ever have. And at that moment, I kind of was just set on it. I kind of branched away from Egyptology and started reading about other periods in history or other people around the world. And at some point there was, I think I want to say it was like third or fourth grade. It was just in social studies class in a textbook about Nevada history. There was some blurb in the margin that just said Native Americans in the American Southwest
00:09:30
Speaker
used a tool called an atlatl to hunt bighorn sheep in the area. And that's all it said. It was just a tiny little blurb, didn't have a picture, didn't have an explanation of what exactly an atlatl was or how it worked. And for whatever reason, I was just fixated on it and I could not pass up all day. I need to know what this thing is. So that started me on a quest to research it. And
00:09:57
Speaker
came across, you know, pictures and videos and explanations of the atlatl. And for whatever reason, I was just obsessed. I couldn't get enough. I had kind of gotten into other weapons in the past. And I'd built my own trebuchets and catapults in my backyard and done archery and fencing and stuff like that. But nothing caught my attention as much as the atlatl did. So I kind of set out like I really want to learn more about this. So I just started reading as much as I could. And
00:10:24
Speaker
didn't actually end up making or throwing an atlatl until a couple of years later, probably because my parents were like, you know, at 10 years old might be, yeah, might be a bad idea to let our 10 year old make a spear throwing weapon in the back or in the garage. So that kind of got put off until I was in middle school. And yeah, so I started I made my first atlatl out of a two by four and some wooden dowels with duct tape flushing.
00:10:52
Speaker
and started throwing and never stopped throwing. So through high school, I kind of upgraded my kit and started building and making more legitimate atlatls that are a little bit more historically accurate or just grown up that work better than two by four and some dowels. And started competing with the World Atlatl Association in 2014 or 2015, I think.
00:11:19
Speaker
Full send on the Attle Attle. Full send, full send. Yeah, I got second place at my first competition in the youth division, which is super, super awesome. And I started it just turns out that the world at Lattel Association hosts one of the largest at Lattel competitions in the country, right outside Las Vegas at Valley of Fire State Park.
00:11:40
Speaker
at a place actually called At Lattel Rock. Oh, it was destined to be... Yeah, it was destined. They hosted this tournament for 20 years. I'd never heard about it. I quickly realized, like, oh, wait a second. I found my people here. So I became more involved with the events and started kind of putting on my own events in Las Vegas and doing different outreach work. So Valley Fire State Park does at Lattel demonstrations throughout the year.
00:12:10
Speaker
separate from the Atlanta tournament that happens. And I kind of said, Hey, well, I'm a local, uh, I can come out and do, help you do the demonstrations if you ever needed to. And I started kind of reaching out to, uh, high schools or elementary schools and middle schools in Las Vegas and doing some more kind of Atlanta presentations or demonstrations for, for school kids. Uh, and sort of really just really enjoyed that aspect of it. And then continue to compete year after year.
00:12:38
Speaker
about two, I think it was two years ago, I was elected to the Board of Directors for the World At-Latal Association, which was super awesome. And I have held that post, it's a three year term. And this is my last year. So I'll run for reelection in the fall. And it's been super, super fun just kind of putting on different events throughout the Southwest. I've worked with the State Historic Preservation Office and Bureau of Land Management to put on at-latal outreach events in Central Nevada. I've done
Educating on Atlatl History & Technology
00:13:08
Speaker
events, obviously at UNLD, because it's easy. And, you know, I'm there as a student, so it's kind of easy to do events with the anthropology society there. And then different school events. So I don't even know how it happened. But schools just started reaching out, hey, we would love for you to do an Atlanta presentation, or an experimental archaeology presentation for our fourth graders who are doing a unit on Native Americans in the Southwest, or our second graders who are doing a unit on
00:13:35
Speaker
uh, you know, living in the ice age or our sixth graders, you know, et cetera, et cetera. So I've done, you know, a couple dozen of these presentations from various groups throughout the Southwest. And, uh, it's just been really awesome to teach people about this thing that they'd never heard of, but without which, who knows how history would have changed because of how widespread the technology was and then how derivative later technology is from the Atlanta. So a lot of like the physics concepts.
00:14:04
Speaker
in later weapons like the bow and arrow, for example, which is what most people assume is one of the oldest weapons, despite it being 20,000 years younger than the atlatl is. And it kind of blows your mind. You realize, oh, wait a second. A lot of the physics principles and the design and the engineering of the bow and arrow may not have been the same if it weren't for the tinkering that humans did with the atlatl beforehand. It seems like propelling projectiles from behind the center of gravity.
00:14:32
Speaker
things like having a flexible shaft in order to store or dissipate energy in a specific way. Things like that come from the atlatl and then kind of get pushed into other weapons and technology later in history. So it's a really, really interesting, I think, jumping off point for people to have a kind of a different perspective on the past and how people lived in the past. And it kind of opens their mind up to
00:14:58
Speaker
again, the genius of our hominid ancestors who came up with some of these incredible pieces of technology. Wow. I'm inspired. I want to go throwing out a lot of notes. Are they difficult to operate? I don't think they're that difficult. I've taught
00:15:18
Speaker
multiple classes of second graders, how to throw that laddle. And I feel like if you can teach a second grade or something, you can teach anybody something. And I feel like like second grade is kind of at that at that point where any younger, they probably wouldn't be able to do it. Probably the earliest age that they'd probably be able to pull it off. It's not that difficult there. It does take some fine motor skills with your fingers. But if you have somebody to kind of help you along and show you the right way to hold it,
00:15:47
Speaker
Everything else about it is very intuitive. It's very much like throwing a baseball. It's not too dissimilar. It uses a lot of what really works about the human shoulder and arm muscles in the best way possible. In a way that hand throwing a spear or javelin doesn't actually work. I think I just explained that terribly. But let me really try to rephrase that. I think using or throwing in that ladle is way more intuitive and
00:16:16
Speaker
works with our natural biomechanics better than hand throwing a spear or javelin javelin wood. So it really does kind of make a lot a lot of sense why this technology was used and so widespread because it's pretty simple works build on biomechanical principles like our body's already good at doing like throwing baseball and just adds simple machines to the
00:16:41
Speaker
to the process or to launch this projectile way, way further than you could by hand. It's really incredible the distance and power gain that you get from using an at-lateral versus almost any other hand-thrown weapon. What is the distance? So at at-lateral competitions, we do five throws. So at like official what we call ISAC competitions, which stands for International Standard Accuracy Competition.
00:17:10
Speaker
It's a standard set of rules and targets that the World Atlatl Association developed in the 90s in order to have standardized tournaments around the world and compare scores worldwide. And the way that the ISAC works is it's five throws from 15 meters and then five throws from 20 meters on a target that's about four feet by four feet. And people at the top end of the competitive range, people who are really, really serious about this atlatl are very good.
00:17:38
Speaker
can nail about a six inch diameter target at 20 meters with almost 100% accuracy. It's quite incredible. And they can even go probably back as far as 25 meters, I would put as the maximum sector volume of an atlatl based on lots of data points at competitions that have happened in the last 20 years. So
00:18:01
Speaker
Even beyond that, even the top throwers aren't able to reliably hit a target in a way that they would be comfortable, for example, hunting with. Because that's what you need to think about when you're talking about weapons. There's this effective range. At what distance would you be comfortable using this weapon to get a lethal hit on a target? And I think 25 meters would be about the maximum format level. Obviously, you've got a bigger target like a mammoth. You probably could step back a little bit further.
00:18:29
Speaker
We have historical evidence during the conquest of Snore Street Lawn by the Spaniards in 1519 and 1521 that Aztec warriors would launch atlatls from up to 100 meters away as like a volley before the rush. So they're very versatile. They can be kind of pinpoint weapons at shorter distances, or you can just launch it. The world record for longest atlatls row
00:18:56
Speaker
is using modern materials or using like carbon fiber darts and stuff like that. It's 273 meters and the world record for traditional materials and equipment like all wooden or cane materials is if I remember correctly it's 183 meters which is still incredibly impressive. It's almost two full football fields.
00:19:19
Speaker
with a dart traveling upwards of 85 miles an hour. Was that from the ground or from above? Was it just like a flat throw? Well, an angled trajectory from the ground, but with a 45 degree trajectory. Wow. Those are for both of those throws. But with even modern materials, 273 meters, that's almost 900 feet, almost three football fields, which is absolutely insane to think about.
00:19:47
Speaker
We'll be back after this break. Were there any other sort of accounts, like the one from 1519, just saying the sheer distance or what they were being used for as they did in that text? Or was it from a text? I'm sorry. Yes, it's from, I can't list the exact text that it's from, but it was from a text written by one of the conquistadors, I believe, if I remember correctly.
00:20:18
Speaker
But yeah, I don't remember exactly what text, but the atlatl comes up quite a bit because it was a weapon that the Spanish didn't really like having any sort of frame of reference for. The Aztec used bow and arrows as well, and they're one of the few cultures that would use both the atlatl and the bow side by side. And obviously, the Spanish knew what a bow and arrow was.
00:20:45
Speaker
the atlatl, they had no, again, no frame of reference, they didn't even know how to translate it or what to call it. In fact, they're one of the first academic texts ever written about atlatls, it was written by an archaeologist called Delia Vitol, and she wrote it in 1891. And it's a linguistic, it's mostly a linguistic study of
00:21:07
Speaker
the terrible mistranslations that have happened with atlatls because the Spanish had no word for it, like they didn't know what to call it. So she actually dove through all these codices and then all of these Spanish written texts and diaries from the conquest years and kind of put together, oh, when this person says crochet hook, what they actually mean is an atlatl because of like XYZ reasons.
00:21:38
Speaker
So it's really incredible. I mean, it was, like I said, it was one of the first ever publications that was entirely dedicated to like an academic review of atlatls. Yeah, comprehensive, specifically Mexican atlatls. And it's kind of like the foundational text for a lot of a lot of study, even though it's not super well known anymore, because it's so old, I think it was really incredible, especially for its time. And, you know, considering
00:22:06
Speaker
how uncommon it was for women to be working archeologists in the 1890s. It was really just an incredible, incredible work. You can still find it online. And yeah, it's something I referenced a lot because I have a lot of information that's still relevant to today in our modern
Cultural Significance of Atlatls
00:22:23
Speaker
understanding of the linguistic history of atlatls and the iconography of atlatls as well, and its depictions throughout Mesoamerican artwork.
00:22:32
Speaker
So it's really, really interesting stuff. I don't know of any other texts besides these that discuss atlatls in use because so much of atlatl use happened before written language. So it's generally accepted that most of Eurasia stopped using atlatls around 15,000 BCE. And that's kind of when they switched over into the bow and arrow more widespread.
00:22:58
Speaker
It's kind of hard because the only places that continue to use atlatls into a quote unquote historical era that has written records would be the Mesoamerican cultures, Aboriginal groups in Australia who use what they called the Wumrah, which is the same technology just in their language, Wumrah, to hunt kangaroo up until you're in contact. And then various groups in the Pacific Northwest and Arctic Circle used versions of atlatls
00:23:29
Speaker
to hunt waterfowl and to hunt seals and whales. So they use it as an aquatic weapon versus a terrestrial weapon, but it's the same concept. So yeah, there's not too many written records of, you know, people in history using atlatls just because, again, so much of it was used before written history existed. Yeah, I mean, it definitely makes sense that there's just not that much.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, and what's interesting is that while they stopped using the atlatl in the way that we think about it, various groups during the end of the Greek kind of empire with Alexander the Great and into the early Roman, Roman control of the Mediterranean, they used a similar weapon called an amenton, if I remember correctly, and it's
00:24:19
Speaker
It uses similar concepts of an atlatl, but it's not an atlatl. It's a leather strap that they wrapped around their javelins, and then they would use the leather strap to launch the javelins. And because the leather strap acts as a lever and because they would attach these straps behind a sort of gravity, it works on identical physics principles as an atlatl. But instead of being this kind of separate tool that you hold and use to launch your spear,
00:24:44
Speaker
It's actually permanently or semi-permanently attached to the spear itself and used to launch the spear. Just launch it with it? Yeah, launch it with it. And then later during a different medieval era, during the medieval era, there was like this, these weapons called throwing darts or throwing javelins, or fletched javelins, kind of various names for them. And they were pretty similar. They were, while javelins usually do not have fletchings or feathers, these did in order to assist their launch
00:25:14
Speaker
with the use of a similar type chord or at-lateral type thing. But yeah, big gaps in its use in eras with recorded history.
00:25:25
Speaker
That's so interesting because I didn't realize how widespread it was. I had only heard Mesoamerican uses for it in passing in that one history class that I had one time. I didn't realize how widespread it was around the world. Yeah, it's one of the most universal weapon systems invented. Virtually every single group
00:25:52
Speaker
had it at some point that we don't have archaeological evidence about lateral use in the African continent. It's the only place where we don't have concrete evidence. I have to imagine, I mean, obviously we know in archaeology, there's so much that that's not going to survive the archaeological record. And in so many parts of the world, the archaeological evidence we do have of that lateral use is so fragmentary. For example, like the oldest
00:26:22
Speaker
atlatl, like intact atlatl that's been excavated dates to only in about 17,500 years. But we have other like circumstantial evidence that their use goes back as far back as about 45,000 years. So there's a lot of gaps in archaeological record because we're dealing with stuff that happened, you know, so long ago, and, and that makes it really hard to do some atlatl study. And the reason atlatls are so associated with Mesoamerica and
00:26:47
Speaker
I guess the Americas in general, is partially because of their, you know, extended youth past every other culture into the contact periods, but also because the desert areas of like the American Southwest and the desert, the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of northern Mexico have preserved more atlatl artifacts than most places elsewhere in the world. So the most, some of the most intact atlatl ever excavated
00:27:14
Speaker
come from from Nevada and Arizona and northern Mexico. And these are particularly what we call basket maker at laddles because they were used during the basket maker two period, which is a kind of pre Puebloan hunter gatherer groups that lived in the American Southwest. And they had a specific style that ladle with these two finger loops and recessed spur that through shorter willow darts generally.
00:27:43
Speaker
that's very, very unique and specific to this part of the world and that time period. So they get called basket maker at laddles and we've excavated quite a few of them in comparison to at laddles excavated in other parts of the world. Just again, because the conditions here are really, really great for preservation of things like wood and leather.
00:28:02
Speaker
It's like, what are the odds that you read this book and there's only one sentence about an atlatl and then you happen to live in the most preserved area, most area that's preserved for atlatl. It really is wild. And then it becomes your life. It becomes your life. And like I said, there's a place at Valley of Fire called Atlatl Rock, and it's just an hour away from my house, basically. And it's called Atlatl Rock because it's this incredible desert
00:28:32
Speaker
Aztec sandstone cliff face that has atlatl petroglyphs all over. And it's so incredible. It almost looks like they held up an atlatl and traced it onto the wall. And it's a basket maker style atlatl. It was depicted as a basket maker style atlatl park and artifact that have been excavated in the area. And it's just really cool to have this connection so close to home with atlatls. And again, they were so widespread in this area for such a long time. It's kind of
00:29:00
Speaker
Really, really awesome just to have that connection. It's like, did that, did you choose the Atta Lattalife or did the Atta Lattalife choose you? I know, yeah. Exactly. And you'd think that with that proximity and such a rich history of atlatls in this area, there might be more people interested in atlatls, especially considering that Valley of Fire and atlatl rock is the most visited part of Valley of Fire.
00:29:27
Speaker
But I was so surprised to learn when I joined the World Atlatl Association that I was one of a very small number, like maybe two or three total atlatl throwers that even lived in the state of Nevada. And most of the people that competed at these events flew in from all over the country and occasionally all over the world to compete because this Valley of Fire tournament happens to be pretty big and prestigious when it comes to tournaments that happen year after year in the association.
00:29:56
Speaker
So that's one of the things that pushed me to do all of these outreach events that I've been doing is to kind of develop more of an Atlanta community in the Southwest. Uh, because if we're going to host some of the largest tournaments, we might as well have some participants actually represent this part of the world. I want to join. Yeah. And the cool thing is like Atlanta's are really easy to make too. So I'm able to kind of get people in just like, Hey, you just need two by four and some towels. Most people are hooked after they, after their first row.
00:30:25
Speaker
I was, I mean, my friend who is an engineer, nothing to do with archaeology. He found your episode in the ologies podcast and he created the atlatl and it was like on his Instagram and he was like throwing it.
00:30:39
Speaker
And when we featured your post on Instagram, he messaged me being like, oh, it's Angelo, this and that. And I'm like, oh yeah, we're going to be interviewing him for our next episode. And he was saying, oh, if you want to throw an atlatl, just come on over. He's so excited. And he was just so enthralled about this whole idea. I think he was part of a Zoom atlatl making workshop that I hosted with
00:31:02
Speaker
ology fans after the episode came out potentially? That would make sense, yes. Do you mind me asking his name? His name is Jacob Boyer. Yeah, okay. That's who I thought it was. The second you said it, I was like, I think she's talking about Jacob. Yeah, Jacob's great. He did really well with a lot of stuff and took to it immediately, which was super awesome. I did this kind of crazy Zoom
00:31:27
Speaker
uh at laddell making workshop for like four hours uh in early fall and it was just a lot of fun and i kind of taught people how to make this like rudimentary at laddell that they could do uh and safely throw and you know in their backyard basically and and drew up some you know kind of grew some interest that way and um i even made in at laddell i make at laddell's when i'm on excavations too or at least i try to uh because you know we have some downtime at camp at night or on off days so like you know might as well
00:31:55
Speaker
Try to make an at-lateral or bring an at-lateral depends on if it's possible to do. Obviously what I'm doing, exclamations here in the States, it's easier to just bring an at-lateral with me, but when I'm doing something internationally, it's going to be a little bit more difficult to just get those on. Like, what is this? Yeah. Going through customs. Uh, what, excuse me, sir, what do you have here? Yeah, I'm actually, I mean, with all those at-lateral competitors that fly in from all over the country for the tournament, I've always wondered what they, like how they,
00:32:24
Speaker
They fly, but I guess they they said they check it out from your archery equipment with the airlines and it can get through. So that makes sense. Yeah, good to know, I guess. How did the workshop like, what did you do for the workshop where it was online and you were still able to show materials and stuff? How was that set up? So I typed out a like a 15 page guide ahead of time that listed
Virtual Workshops & Digital Engagement
00:32:53
Speaker
all the materials and tools somebody would need. And I tried to, I mean, there's so many different designs for atlatls and so many different ways to make atlatls. I had to think, first thing I did was think for like a week, okay, what is the easiest, easiest design of an atlatl and dart to make that requires the least amount of specialty material? Like I want this to be as accessible to people as possible. I don't want to make it go out and buy, you know, oh, you need to buy all these specialty chisels, you know, you need to buy the specialty, whatever, whatever to make this.
00:33:24
Speaker
So I really thought long and hard, okay, if I just had like a pocket knife and a hand saw and some sandpaper, you know, would I be able to make in that ladle? Kind of tinkered with the design for a little bit. And then I wrote out this long document and kind of said, okay, here are the tools you need, the materials, had people purchase that ahead of time. And then for the zoom, I was able to kind of have all the materials ready and say, okay, you're going to take your one inch diameter dowel, you're going to cut it to this length and
00:33:53
Speaker
here's what you're going to look for when you're carving your notch. And I kind of draw it in and basically make it along with the participants throughout the entire zoom. And, you know, considering that I probably made, I don't know, two or three dozen atlatls in like 150 atlatl darts in my lifetime, I was able to do it very quickly and kind of quickly demonstrate and then let them kind of do it on their own and check in with them over to the camera. And that's kind of how it worked.
00:34:22
Speaker
slow progress, but we got through it. And like I said, it's a pretty, I picked the easiest design possible knowing that it was going to be, you know, accomplishable for most people. And it went really well. Everybody had a working at Laddle by the end of the three or four hour workshop. And I have them all send in videos of them throwing and seems like everyone's had a good time and was pretty successful. So it was a pretty, pretty awesome event.
00:34:45
Speaker
That's so amazing what you can do in a virtual course, like little workshop like that, as well as an in-person workshop. Yeah, for sure. Just the accessibility of it all as well. It's amazing. Honestly, the pandemic has kind of opened up the world to digital workplaces more. And after I was on the Ologies podcast, I started getting messages from
00:35:14
Speaker
school teachers, like K through 12 school teachers, teachers all over the country who said, oh, would you be able to do your at-lateral presentation that you do with elementary school kids over Zoom? And I had to think like, how would I do that? Obviously, I wasn't able to actually have the kids throw the at-lateral over Zoom. That's impossible. But I was able to adapt a lot of my normal presentation into a Zoom format and on top of doing, you know, my normal in-person events that I do every year.
00:35:44
Speaker
I was able to add like a half dozen Zoom events with K through 12 groups all over the country and have a little PowerPoint and hold up stuff to the camera so they could see and share videos and slow motion footage so they could kind of experience it. And it's been really awesome to adapt these presentations to reach a wider audience. And I'm happy to do it because again, I just want more people to know about this kind of stuff and have an appreciation for the past and the technology of the past.
00:36:13
Speaker
And hopefully that inspires them to research it further. And, you know, my thought is if I tell a thousand people about that laddle and I can get a hundred of them to research it more later and then 10 of those hundred to actually make an out laddle and try to throw it themselves and five of those 10 to show up for that laddle competition, then I have succeeded. So that's my goal with all these events.
00:36:37
Speaker
That's, that's incredible. What would you have to say? Cause you're saying that you want to do more outreach. Like what's that's like the, like you're good with that, but what else are you seeing that you can do with outreach and kind of, do you have any thoughts of like YouTube channels or any other sort of stuff like that? Yeah. Yeah. I thought about, I thought about something like a YouTube channel. Uh, I.
00:37:07
Speaker
Doing that kind of stuff requires a lot of effort that I'm not able to put in right now just because of the time constraints of being a full-time student who also works various jobs part-time. So I've thought about stuff like that. It just kind of would be hard. I'm kind of a one-man operation and I don't really have a lot of experience with video or cameras or editing software or stuff like that. So potentially in the future if I got to a point where I
00:37:37
Speaker
maybe was just working and wasn't doing work and school at the same time, then I could have time to dedicate towards some sort of like experimental archaeology YouTube channel or an atlatl YouTube channel, something where I could post slint mapping videos or slings or a cordage or atlatls and stuff like that. Potentially, but nothing that I can come up with right now. I've just been trying to keep an active Instagram presence because
00:38:03
Speaker
I had an influx of followers after the ologies episode and want to keep those people engaged in the world of atlatls and archaeology and hopefully in the future do more. But I think the in-person stuff has the biggest effect. I think for me, I would rather do an in-person workshop with 50 people than have 5,000 people watch a YouTube video because
00:38:32
Speaker
At least I'm guaranteeing that those 50 people are actually throwing an atlatl and having that experience. I think you should make a TikTok. I bet you would be so popular on TikTok. Do like a 60 second if you like whittling your atlatl or like throwing it. Oh, that would blow up so big. That's not a bad idea. Don't do a lot of editing. You just use your phone.
00:39:01
Speaker
I don't have an Angelo. That's such a good tag. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, I might have to look into that. I do not have TikTok. My sister has TikTok. I'm sure she could show me how to use it. Oh, she could even film you. She could, yeah. Oh, she's away at college now. I had this idea when she was home, maybe. But yeah, TikTok makes sense because it's less editing and less
00:39:25
Speaker
kind of commitment than YouTube for sure. So yeah, there's a lot more just like raw video on there of people just doing their thing. So I think that'd be a great like low commitment platform. I keep thinking about wanting to do like a flip napping Twitch stream where you can just tune in and watch me flip not for no time. And I think doing that would like force me to practice what nothing more. But also because I am in the grand scheme of life,
00:39:56
Speaker
a novice flint mapper. Like if you put me, if you transported me back like 40,000 years, I would probably be the worst flint mapper in the tribe. But I think if I had a Twitch stream, maybe my progress could be tracked through video. And that might be cool. You know, over the course of a year, if I do one flint mapping stream a week, see how my progress goes from beginning to end.
00:40:21
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, do it. And then you can take the clips from your Twitch stream and put them on TikTok. Yeah, honestly. Alyssa just really wants you on TikTok. I was having this conversation with a friend today about how Twitch streamers are like the ultimate content creators. They're the epitome of make one's profit twice.
00:40:43
Speaker
will stream something, pay somebody to clip the best parts of the stream into a YouTube video where they're monetizing that as well. Then they create a Reddit for their fans to make memes about their videos. And they make streams reacting to the memes. It's like... This could be you, Angelo. I know. It could be. It could be. If I just... I can see. Yeah. Full committal. Mom and dad, I'm quitting my job. I'm going to become a full-time Twitch foot-napping Twitch streamer.
00:41:08
Speaker
Here's my PayPal. It's in the description. Yeah. There's one coffee. I think mainly like artists use that in animators. I don't really know like coffee.
00:41:24
Speaker
Um, yeah, but having like a title being like archeologists flint napping, people are going to be like, what? And then they'll flock to your stream, go in the comments where you can engage with them there as well as you're like, Oh, I'm just casually flint napping like you do. Oh, you know, it's just a normal thing. And that's the thing I thought about because I mean, I'm not.
00:41:46
Speaker
I don't really, I'm not a Twitch person. I don't watch Twitch, but I can't imagine that there's anybody else doing flintknapping streams on Twitch. So I would corner that market for sure.
00:41:56
Speaker
I'm just thinking about, like, how many hours I've spent watching that one guy who, like, builds the huts in the middle of the woods, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, there's definitely an audience for just, like, mundane experimental archaeology. And what's crazy about his video, well, what's the name of his channel? Primitive Technologies, the name of his channel. Yes. What's crazy is that, like, I mean, he has probably
00:42:22
Speaker
300 hours of footage on YouTube and he doesn't speak a single word in any of it. It's completely silent. Just the camera of a guy in blue cargo shorts with no shirt, just making stuff. It's incredible. I think he's Australian or something like that. Yeah, his story is kind of crazy because he doesn't actually have a background in like archaeology. He kind of is just doing this for fun and researched and then realized, hey, I can just make some videos. Which is amazing in and of itself. So I just like doing this.
00:42:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, he had like a friend help purchase from land that he was allowed to just do all these experiments on and do all these large scale projects that you wouldn't be able to do unless you had access to land that you could construct on and do crazy stuff. Yeah, he actually himself, he has an atlatl video. He's made atlatl, bone arrow, slang, like a few other stuff. He does pretty well with them. He's very impressive, definitely very impressive.
00:43:19
Speaker
He should turn that piece of land into like an amusement park type thing, you know, like museum. People go, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would be the coolest thing to have a complete, like almost similar to what, what CMAQ and the year center do. If you'd like turn that open to the public and have a living museum. I mean, I know living museums are things that exist. Uh,
00:43:46
Speaker
But you have a living museum for experimental archaeology, where museum guests can both watch and try a variety of experimental archaeological activities throughout various points in history. I think that's a great idea.
Exploring Slinging Culture
00:43:58
Speaker
Sounds like something you should do, Andrew. Yeah, perhaps. Yeah, maybe one day. Does he land who? Yeah. Yeah, who wants to go to New England? I don't have a lot to land. All those, yeah, when you can go to a lot of land for sure. Yeah.
00:44:11
Speaker
Adalataland. Adalataland. Adalatalangelo. Feels like a tongue twister. I love it. But your tongue is just like flopping around. No, it sounds like it already exists, to be honest. Yeah. Meant to be. Meant to be. Meant to be. And we'll be back after this break.
00:44:31
Speaker
So you mentioned, so Attal, Attal, Flintnapping, what else do you like to construct? Or what's like your dream piece to create? Is that cause you made sense at all? Well, so I've been trying to, I've been thinking about making a Baleric style sling for a very long time now. So
00:44:58
Speaker
So fling is like, you know, the thing David used to kill Goliath or whatever. But there's this area in the Mediterranean called the Balearic Islands. It's a territory of Spain. And for, first of all, it's an independent autonomous polity, but it's technically part of Spain somehow. But they do have their own kind of independent government system. But it's the islands in the Mediterranean who,
00:45:26
Speaker
have had slinging as their national sport for the last 3,000 years. It's the only country where slinging is a sport. They mandate slinging as part of elementary education. To pass fourth grade, you have to learn how to sling. There are ancient Greek writers and historians who theorize that the Balearic people must have invented slings because they're so good at slinging. They're a level of
00:45:56
Speaker
They were so good at slinging it was almost a comparable to anything else any other part of the world was doing. And I don't really, I haven't done enough research to figure out why these islands just went full send on slinging. But they developed this very specific style of short split strand sling that not many other people or places in the world create. And they just practiced until they had sniper level accuracy and they would
00:46:27
Speaker
be hired as mercenaries in various ancient armies because like they're like oh we have a perfect thousand man fling unit ready for hire so uh yeah they were written about extensively throughout history and then they've kept that up and it's part of their national their modern national identity they host uh fling competitions and it's just a huge part of the culture over there um
00:46:51
Speaker
Even in a touristy area, you can go on tours and they have slingers, talk about ancient slang battles that have happened on the island. It's super interesting, but their style of slang is just so unique and so incredible. I've always wanted to make one. What's cool about it is that they taper the release knot so that it cracks like a whip when you throw it, which almost adds to this kind of intimidation factor because it's like a double hit. When they release it, it literally loud gunshot-like
00:47:21
Speaker
know, whip crack. And then the projectiles traveling at what from like 43 or 34 meters a second or something and going through somebody's skull, pretty, pretty wild, pretty incredible. And that's one thing flings very underrated weapon in Malcolm Gladwell had a book called David and Goliath, where he opens the book discussing the David and Goliath story. And his kind of thesis about this book is that all maybe
00:47:50
Speaker
You know, we assumed David is the underdog, but maybe David wasn't the underdog. And he cites this one study that says that, uh, uh, like a golf ball sized stone leaving a sling has the same impact impact force as a 45 caliber handgun, because even though it's traveling slower, like the speed with the mass of the stone is incredible. So yeah, slings are a crazy weapon that you thought at Laddles could throw far. Um, the world record for a sling throw is 1300 feet.
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty, pretty terrifying. Kind of like the OG gun, especially with that like whip action at the end. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I find it interesting that in, in Nawaz, which is the Aztec language, while they called slings 10 atlatls. So like there's something to their association with atlatls and slings because they have the exact same root. So they use slings prominently as well as atlatls as well as bows.
00:48:46
Speaker
But yeah, it's kind of these weapons that utilize leverage are really, really fascinating. And honestly, now that I'm thinking about it in this conversation, I'm realizing that that's basis with all the weapons I'm interested in, or all the tools that I'm interested in have in common. They all are like leverage based tools.
00:49:03
Speaker
It's like, it makes sense why they were used for so long and they've just like been evolved and adopted over the years. Cause it's just like, you just throw it. You don't have to even come into contact with anybody and then you're just like, you dead? You good? Okay. We're good. We're alive over here. We're doing great. We got food. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, projectile weapons really changed the game because you can be far away from dangerous prey.
00:49:26
Speaker
Uh, I, I would not want to go toe to toe, hand to hand with a mammoth, but I will comfortably stand 50 meters away with an atlatl and launch a obsidian point through it. How many, how many atlatls do you think it would take to take down a mammoth? Uh, I am not. How many atlatls?
00:49:50
Speaker
like what's the impact of one at a lateral? Okay, so so that we have some information for the impact is pretty great. And it's, it's hard to measure the exact impact because it's a piercing weapon, right? It's not like a blunt force weapon. But the first of all, you have a large, you know, broadhead point, it's a large chunk of obsidian that's that's spinning through the target as it's going through. There have been some experimental work with archaeologists that have thrown at laddles at
00:50:20
Speaker
bison carcasses, and as like an analog kind of to see how how it would react with with actual flesh and bone. And there have been two or three of these specific experiments that have been done in the last year and a half. The most notable of what was this guy named Ryan Gill, who actually stalked and hunted an actual living bison using an atlatl with a stone tip. And he did this, it was part of a
00:50:48
Speaker
He himself is not an archaeologist, he's a primitive weapons enthusiast, but he was kind of contracted out to work with a experimental archaeology researcher at the University of North Texas, if I remember correctly, who helped facilitate the experiments. And he was able to deliver a lethal blow to the bison with the atlatl at like 15-ish meters with just one throw.
00:51:13
Speaker
He then used the second throw for a quicker, more humane kill. But technically the first throw was lethal. And later experiments that have thrown against recently deceased bison, well not living bison, but an actual bison that has died and they threw a lot of darts at it to see how the darts would interact with the skin and the bones, whatever, have found similarly that you could deliver a lethal blow with just one, or a lethal hit with just one throw. So it's not going to take two or three people throwing at a bison to take it down.
00:51:43
Speaker
I don't know how a bison, how well of an analog of bison is for a mammoth. So I don't really know how to make that exact determination. But I can imagine that if you can take down a bison with just one throw, you probably doesn't take more than two or three throws to take on a mammoth. Wow. Wow. Yeah. You know, a big kind of debate is work Clovis points, which are those large fluted points where those used on at laddles, where those used on thrusting spears or whatever.
00:52:12
Speaker
Various experiments have shown that it is possible to have a Clovis point, like a Clovis point recreation onto an atlause dart, throw it and still have it function. So those are really large points. So you can just imagine a point that large traveling at 80 miles an hour, which is pretty standard for an atlause throw, especially if you're going to try to hunt something, you're going to be throwing pretty much full power.
00:52:39
Speaker
that traveling at 80 miles an hour is going to cause a lot of damage. Even if it's not immediately lethal, you're just carrying a large hole into an animal with a very, very sharp material. You know, cities in Flint are just way sharper than people realize, especially in the city, which is sharper than, which can be sharper than modern, even surgical steel. So I think it's totally plausible that you could take down a man with just one or two throws, assuming that you place it right. Obviously, if you hit a rib,
00:53:09
Speaker
It's not gonna go as well. However, however, I actually posted on my Instagram story like maybe two weeks ago, on one of these, these experiments with the atlatl throwing at the bison carcass, the atlatl dart actually embedded itself into the spinal column of the bison. So which which honestly, I didn't even
00:53:35
Speaker
think was that plausible because I just imagine a relatively brittle, you know, point hitting something as strong as like the backbone of a bison. And just I can just imagine the point just shattering on impact. But this point just embedded itself into the bone and they ended up after kind of processing the animal they
00:53:56
Speaker
use beetles to clean off the flesh and leave this perfect bone with the fat lateral point sticking into it. And it's kind of the coolest picture I've ever seen. So it's crazy how much force, even if you quote unquote miss and you hit a rib bone instead of traveling through the ribs into the vital area, you're potentially breaking a rib with an atlateral throw or at least doing some major damage to a bone like that, even on a large animal like a bison or a mammoth.
00:54:23
Speaker
I mean, there's a reason they were used for as long as they were to hunt mamma, potentially to extinction in North America, because they just are incredibly powerful weapons with a really high success rate, especially with a large animal like that.
00:54:36
Speaker
That's so impressive. I feel like we could talk about this for forever. I know. I want to hear about it for forever too. You definitely have to share with us some of the things you're talking about for Instagram. We would love to share more of your photos or any record of events you've done, et cetera. Yeah, I'll definitely send some pictures over. And yeah, especially I'll try to find that picture of the dart that's in the bone of the bison.
00:55:07
Speaker
And then maybe even some other videos about model throws and stuff like that. But yeah, I could, as you mentioned, I could talk about models for the next six hours.
Encouragement to Engage with Atlatls
00:55:16
Speaker
So we would love a video of you throwing an atlatl if you have one. That would be incredible. Oh, okay. I definitely have one. I will share that. I assume you have plenty. You just have to choose the one. Or you can send us several.
00:55:32
Speaker
Yeah, I might send one or two, especially some slow motion footage as well because that really allows you to see how the dart flexes in flight, which is such an important part of the system and such a misunderstood part of the system as well. Yeah, a lot of flex. Yeah. Incredible. I can't wait to see it. This year force and momentum and all that fun jazz. Well, thank you so much for coming on here today.
00:55:59
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for having me. I had a great time talking about my passions and talking at Laddles. I'm happy to talk at Laddles anytime, anywhere. So this is awesome. Thank you so much. Are there any quick shout outs you want to do before we wrap up? Yes. People can find me at idigitfirst on Instagram and Twitter. That's I-D-I-G-I-T-1-S-T, like the numeral one.
00:56:27
Speaker
And you can find the World At Lattel Association at worldatlattel.org or on Instagram at worldatlattelassociation. And on the website, they have a calendar with events all over the world. So you can look and see if there's an event near near you and try to visit. We're a nice bunch. We usually do a lot of public demos and let the public try at Lattel's along with
00:56:53
Speaker
having competitions happen. So if you're interested in learning more, you can check those places out to learn more or reach out to me on Instagram. Amazing. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye.
00:57:13
Speaker
This show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.