Throwing sticks : a Prehistoric weapon that evolved since the origin of the wooden tools

It seems evident that the first objects man threw to survive be a stone or a branch. In the same manner than man improved his tools made of stone, the wooden tools evolved as well. The main difference is that we now know well the former while we know little about the latter since wooden tools tended to disappear after a few millenniums of decay, unless they were preserved in particular and rare circumstances. The throwing stick, as a hunting weapon, probably preceded the assegai (or spear) and certainly the bow. As a survival tool during the Paleolithic period, it probably was used in many ways that can be observed with the Australian Aborigines. Throwing sticks were certainly rugged originally, close to a simple polished and straight stick that didn't come back. This type of archaic throwing stick most likely existed several hundreds of thousands of years ago. Then, in order to improve the performance and range of his weapon, man cut that stick down further and further, sharpening it and making it lighter. These improvements make it necessary for man to choose bent branches that stabilize the flight of these throwing sticks, probably invented in the early Upper Paleolithic Period that the Oblazowa discoveries suggest. This generation of lighter throwing sticks increased the flight height, allowing birds hunting with sticks that could go higher and farther than ever, requiring even less force to throw by the end of the Upper Paleolithic Period (around 20,000 years ago).
 
Man must have sometimes observed curved flights when throwing these sticks due to natural torsion or induced during the manufacture process of these lighter sticks, creating the first returning throwing stick similar to the Australian Aborigines boomerangs. The invention of the boomerang didn't happen in one day and is not due to chance. Imagine the fascination of the first men who saw a throwing stick perform a curved flight and coming back to its launching position!
 
The earliest object looking like a throwing stick and identified as such was discovered in Oblazowa in Poland. It is dated around 23,000 BC, features a light curved shape, of 71 cm (27.95 inches), carved out a mammoth tusk, plano-convex (already!) and quite heavy with 800 grams (28.2 ounces). Tests performed with a copy of this hunting stick showed that is worked perfectly and had a range of 60 meters (almost 200 feet).

Here is a chronology of archaeological discoveries of the throwing stick, the boomerang or any of their representations:

" Maybe because man started throwing sticks since the beginning, we feel a strange familiarity while holding a throwing stick."

From the third millennium BC in Mesopotamia, we can find evidence of the use of throwing sticks in the iconography and texts of the era

The throwing stick, first a hunting stick that evolved into a returning stick of a boomerang type, has its root during the Upper Paleolithic Period in the same way that the propellant prehistoric spear and other wooden tools that appeared as soon as stone tools where advanced enough to allow precise work on wood materials.

In fact, paintings in Kimberley, Australia dating back 17,000 years link human figures and boomerangs. They're called "Bradshaw figures" or "Guyon Guyon".


The throwing stick as a prehistoric tool existed on all 5 continents, even if it was in Australia that the Aborigines used it the most. This allowed them to pass the knowledge of its use and manufacture through generations until today.

In Australia, the oldest wooden boomerang,
discovered at Wyrie Swamp in 1973
dating back 10,000 years!

In Europe, particularly in the north, a throwing stick made of maple wood is 6,000 years old and was found in Braband, Denmark.
In Holland, an oak-made returning boomerang that is 2,300 years old was found in a bog around Velsen.


In Egypt, a set of funeral throwing sticks comprised of symbolic throwing sticks, hunting sticks and boomerangs, was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings by Howard Carter and Lord Carnavon in 1922.

Box containing the young
king collection

We can find evidence of the use of throwing sticks since the Neolithic Period in other regions of Africa, especially in the northern part of Sahara where is it represented in engravings and paintings on rocks.



On the North American continent in Arizona, the Hopi tribe used rabbit sticks for rabbits hunting. Some date back 1,300 years ago. But the oldest discovery in the new world is without a doubt the one in Little Salt Lake, Florida dating back 9,000 years ago, the earliest on this continent.