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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.org/wiki/Spear-thrower

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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?

"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.

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

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