Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Clovis hunters likely did not use atlatls to hunt megafauna as previously thought, according to a study*. Late Pleistocene humans in North America who were assigned to the Clovis culture are thought to have hunted megafauna using atlatls, which are handheld, rod-shaped devices with hooked ends that were used to throw flexible spears or darts with enhanced velocity and range. However, direct evidence of atlatl use by Clovis hunters has not been documented in the archaeological record. Metin Eren, Briggs Buchanan, and colleagues reconstructed the history of atlatl use in western North America by applying chronological modeling to 66 radiocarbon dates of preserved atlatl or dart specimens from Holocene contexts. Statistical modeling of the 10 oldest dates, ranging from around 9,300 to 6,100 years ago, suggested that the first appearance of the atlatl in North America was likely 9,996 years ago. The latest documented date for Clovis sites is 12,710 calibrated years ago, suggesting that the first Americans did not bring atlatls over from the Old World and did not use the weapons when hunting megafauna. The atlatl weapon system that later emerged in the Early Holocene Americas can instead be considered a case of technological convergent evolution with the atlatls of Upper Paleolithic Europe. According to the authors, archaeologists should explore the use of alternative weapons by Clovis hunters, with distinct effectiveness, hunting risks, and associated tactics.
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Illustration of Clovis fluted stone point. Credit Michelle R. Bebber.
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Article Source: PNAS news release.
*“Late Pleistocene Clovis atlatl hunting fails a chronological modeling test,” by Metin I. Eren, Michelle R. Bebber, Robert S. Walker, C. Reagan Johnson, and Briggs Buchanan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 29-Jun-2026. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2607964123
Image, Top: Atlatl use illustration. Sebastião da Silva Vieira, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
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