Why did spear thrower disappear from Europe so early and yet staid widely used in Mesoamerica even if they knew bow and...

Why did spear thrower disappear from Europe so early and yet staid widely used in Mesoamerica even if they knew bow and were renowned slngers?

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Europeans had better armour.

plate didnt make a comeback until the late middle ages
i bet that shit would penetrate chain mail

Because in Yurop a leather thong was used to make it spin and make the throw more powerful, being more effective and lighter than a thrower.

But it fell off use in Europe probably even before neolithic.

They were replaced by bows which are superior in pretty much every way. As I understand not every tribe in mesoamerica had bows.

Bows have less power penetration than javelins, than would skewer a man even in mail or make a shield useless. They were never replaced until the end of the middle ages be guns,like in iberia, the ERE,Persia or Ireland.

I'm used to both and from personal experience i would say that only real advantages amentum has over atlatl are that it's more compact and slightly easier to use accurately. Atlatl clearly outpowers and outranges it and you can carry twice as many darts as even light javelins.

>As I understand not every tribe in mesoamerica had bows.

Europe was exposed to the bow before the Americas were, which means there was more time for adoption to be more thorough. For example, the Southwest and Great Basin usually aren't thought of as getting the bow until around 1500 years ago; that's the start of the dark ages.

Bows and atlatls are suited to different uses. In areas of the the Americas, the kinds of game and hunting strategies that the atlatl was best at were still viable until people bothered to figure out ways to make the bow more useful for things like going after large game.

All Mesoamericans were well aware of the bow, the thing is some opted to use the atlatl over the bow. In part it was cultural. The bow and arrow was seen as a savage tool of hunters, as opposed to the atlatl which was viewed as a civilized tool of urbanized people. The Aztecs followed this line of thought which they probably got from the Toltecs (seeing as Aztecs started out as bow users when they were wandering nomads). The Maya adopted the atlatl from Teotihuacan, but the bow continued to be in use well into the Postclassic period. The Mixtecs also used both in their armies. The Purepecha (Tarascans) who were rivals of the Aztecs actually viewed it with pride, the Irecha (king) had emeralds encrusted in his bow. Many other people the Aztecs regarded as culturally inferior like the Yopi, Huastec, and Chichimec nomads of the north as used the bow regularly. The Aztecs employed the bow mostly through auxilliaries so it doesn't appear as often. Though the civilizations which did use the bow a lot were also the ones who gave the Aztecs the hardest time. The best archers in Mesoamerica though undoubtedly are the Chichimecs and to a lesser extent Chiapanecs and Tzotziles. There's many accounts of the skill of Chichimec archers by Spanish accounts.

atlatls require too much training, too many resources and too much meticulous craftsmanship compared to bows, but they are so much deadlier that I'm actually upset they were never adapted to medieval warfare. I've always wondered if a steel tipped atlatl dart could pierce plate armor.

>superior in every way
bows were for killing birds. atlatls were for killing mammoths.

pic related are the Chichimecs

Sardinians had it during the bronze age-early iron age

Bows are more practical in closer quarters, for volley fire, for mounted archery and for ambushes and are more accurate to boot. Not to say that throwing spears don't have their place, but they're largely overkill in warfare once metallic arrowheads come around; would you rather have troops armed with a bow and three dozen arrows or a dart launcher and a dozen darts? Plus it's much cheaper and easier to make arrows than javelins.

kek'd hard at this monumental shitpost

Throwing a spear is much faster to learn than shooting a bow and a good bow requires much more technology to construct than a fucking atlatl.

>what are velites

>their name meant no, the answer they gave to most spanish demands

Is this bait?

sling advantage is many many ammunition. bow advantage is range. javelin advantage is power and the ability to carry armour and melee without jeapardizing throwing power. Add a horse and its abit easier. But arrows and javelins especially require lots of holding ammunition.

Because they were fucking retarded; the bow and arrow had more utility, more missiles to shoot, and the fletching wasn't an absolute bitch.

It's a normal javelin with a strap, not a fucking spear thrower. There are no any records of such device being used in historical times and the last archaeological findings are from ~7000bc and even they are doubtful.

Does his scabbard have a shitty chinese tattoo?

youtube.com/watch?v=Ej3it7Ct76w

It was mainly used by nobles as a ceremonial weapon.

Maybe it's some kind of club?