Atlatls to Bows: The Hook Brings You Back

Post Office, Independence, California

Atlatl weights are the most widespread attachments to atlatls that are durable enough to survive in conditions where the wooden parts decay, but they’re not the only attachments known to have been used.  Another type of attachment, of more obvious function though of much more limited range, is the “hook” or “spur” near the back end of the atlatl that cradles the nock of the dart when it is being thrown.  In Mesoamerican and Southwestern examples, the hook is generally gouged out of the wood of the atlatl itself, either flush with the upper surface (with a recessed groove for the dart) or protruding above it with the dart resting at the level of the atlatl surface.  This was probably also the case for most atlatls in areas where they have not survived but their presence is attested by weights.  In a few places, however, hooks were made of stone, bone, or antler, and have thus survived where the atlatls they were attached to have not.

California Welcome Sign

The two main areas where durable hooks were used are widely separated geographically, though not necessarily temporally.  These are California, especially the Central Valley, and the Ohio River watershed, especially the areas south of the river in Kentucky and Tennessee.  In both areas the hooks seem to date to the Archaic period, but beyond that there are few similarities.  The California examples are described in a 1969 article by Francis Riddell and Donald McGeein which classifies them into three types.  The vast majority fall into their Type II, which are shaped like elongated acorns and made usually of bone, although a few examples are of stone.  They come mainly from the Central Valley, especially the Sacramento area, although a fair number come from the San Francisco Bay area and the Santa Barbara Channel as well and a few are reported from other areas such as Los Angeles County and Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo County.  The examples from documented contexts all seem to be associated with the Middle Horizon period, but many are from undocumented excavations or private collections, and their original contexts are unknown.

Morro Bay, California

Riddell and McGeein also define two other types.  Type I appears to be earlier than Type II and consists of hooks shaped like snake heads and made of stone, perhaps exclusively, which makes them quite different from Type II hooks, which are acorn-shaped and usually made of bone.  Type I examples resemble hooks found in Nevada and are found in the Sierra Nevada area on the edge of the Great Basin, as well as in the Central Valley.  Type III is represented by a single specimen from a private collection which apparently contains other similar examples, all from the San Joaquin Valley.  It closely resembles Type I but is considerably larger and made of bone rather than stone, and Riddell and McGeein note that it may be a variant of Type I rather than a separate type.  They also suggest the possibility that Type III is intermediate between Types I and II, assuming the main difference between them is temporal.

Sierra Nevada, Independence, California

Interestingly, Riddell and McGeein note that Middle Horizon sites tend to lack atlatl weights (which in California are often called “boatstones”), although they commonly have Type II atlatl hooks.  This suggests that Type II hooks may have been used on a particular type of unweighted atlatl.  Since there appear to be no intact examples of this type of atlatl, however, due to the poor preservation conditions in the humid environments where Type II hooks are found, they can only offer this as a tentative suggestion.  Type I examples, however, are often associated with weights, suggesting that they come from a different (earlier?) type of atlatl that was weighted.

Mt. Whitney Administrative Office, Lone Pine, California

On the other side of the country are the rather different atlatl hooks known from well-preserved atlatls found in rockshelters in Kentucky and Tennessee.  These hooks are typically made of antler or bone, and the antler ones are often made from an antler tip only slightly modified to be attached to the atlatl and to hold the dart.  One example from Ohio is illustrated in a short article in American Antiquity, but the JSTOR scan of the page is unfortunately of very poor quality and it’s not possible to see any details in the picture.  Although these appear to be of Archaic date, making them roughly contemporaneous with the California examples, they are sufficiently different in form that there is unlikely to be any connection, and independent innovation in both areas is more likely than any sort of contact or diffusion.  The fact that the idea of a durable atlatl hook seems to have been unknown in the Southwest or on the Great Plains also suggests independent innovation.  The practical value of a strong support for the nock of the dart seems pretty clear, and may explain why at least two separate groups came up with the idea, but the fact that it didn’t spread much further in any case and was not invented independently in more cases suggests that it may not have been a major improvement over the more typical gouged hook.

Goslin, R. (1944). A Bone Atlatl Hook from Ohio American Antiquity, 10 (2) DOI: 10.2307/275117

Riddell, F., & McGeein, D. (1969). Atlatl Spurs from California American Antiquity, 34 (4) DOI: 10.2307/277746