Ancient spear-throwing tool brings fun and history to Vermont competition

Audio By Carbonatix

ADDISON, Vt. (AP) — Celine Thouin learned a lot as a student at Franklin Pierce University, and one of the skills she has held onto the longest is how to use an ancient spear-throwing tool.

She got to share that skill with fellow Vermonters on Saturday. Thouin, 38 and a veteran of the Franklin Pierce atlatl team, was one of a few dozen participants in the Northeast Open Atlatl Championship in Addison, Vermont.

Humans invented the atlatl thousands of years ago for use as a spear-throwing hunting tool. They were used to hunt massive animals such as woolly mammoths in the days long before recorded history.

Now, they are the passion of a group of hobbyists and anthropology lovers who see the atlatl as a way to learn about history and have fun.

“I think it's just a low-pressure sport. Really, really fun,” said Thouin, who won the 2020 competition and whose children are also atlatl enthusiasts. “It's also experimental archaeology, which is incredibly fun. We get to use the same weapons that were used 15,000 years ago all over the world.”

The competition took place at Chimney Point State Historic Site in Addison, near Lake Champlain and the New York state border. It was the thirtieth annual event and a part of Vermont's Archaeology Month, organizers said.

The contest was open to all ages and allowed participants to shoot for accuracy and distance. Throws of more than 800 feet (244 meters) have been recorded, though even a much shorter throw than that takes a good degree of skill.

For Douglas Bassett, a past president of the World Atlatl Association and another participant in Saturday's event, the history of the atlatl is as interesting as its use. He described it as “a stick by which you can throw another stick,” and he said it was used all over the ancient world.

Bassett confessed to having no idea how to pronounce the name of the tool. Most sources say it is aht-LAHT-l, but the exact pronunciation might be lost to the mists of time, he said.

“The language is gone as the people are gone, so I don't know much about the pronunciations,” Bassett said. “But all kinds of languages, all around the world. It may pretty much have been on every continent. Even when Antarctica melts, maybe we'll find evidence of people throwing spears there, too, with the atlatl.”