For thousands of years, ancient hunters across North America relied on the atlatl — a lever-powered spear-throwing device — to pursue prey. Then, about 1,400 years ago, something changed fast.
A new study co-authored by Metin I. Eren, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Kent State University, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, reveals that the bow and arrow swept across western North America roughly 1,400 years ago in a near-simultaneous wave — and in much of the region, it didn't just compete with the atlatl. It wiped it out almost overnight.
The research team analyzed 140 radiocarbon dates from 136 well-preserved organic weapons recovered from ice sheets, dry caves and rock shelters stretching from Mexico to Alaska — the most comprehensive dataset of its kind ever assembled. Their findings upend previous theories about when and how the bow arrived on the continent.
In the southern region, from northern Mexico through California and the American Southwest, the bow replaced the atlatl in a disruptive, nearly instantaneous technological revolution. In the north, however, the two weapon systems coexisted for more than 1,000 years — a difference the researchers link to ecological risk management in harsher northern environments, where maintaining multiple tools provides a survival advantage.
Eren directs the Experimental Archaeology Program at Kent State, where he, his faculty peers and student researchers physically recreate ancient technologies to understand how prehistoric peoples lived and innovated. He is also a research associate at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and an affiliate of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.
The study was published March 17, 2026. Read the full article at PNAS Nexus: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/3/pgag040/8524400?login=false