I was always fascinated by atlatls. I’m not sure how much they would overlap with a society that uses bows, but whatever. they seem more like a javelin-throwing tool than one that launches arrows.
like bows, the design of atlatls are pretty clever when you think about it. a simple lever provides so much efficiency. I would hazard a guess that whoever invented the atlatl probably had to put up with a lot of naysayers complaining that he was wasting his time playing around with his invention when he could be just learning “how to throw better”. I still think people generally fall into the camps of being learners or innovators, but I will talk about that another time.