[ridgeguy]

Perhaps to some degree, kids recapitulate in their childhoods the weapons evolution of their homo sapiens forebears.

Around age 4, I learned how to flake spear points from a local flint deposit. That, string and Elmer's glue from mom & dad's repair goodies got me into the spear biz. Band-Aids were in demand.

A couple years later, I'd made arrows and single curve bows from pine branches and bowstring from braided water rushes. Flint knapping scaled down well to arrowheads and string+glue still worked.

Then I read about atlatls, and found new interest in my spears. Finally, I discovered slings, and there was no going back. I got good enough that in later life, I had no trouble crediting scientific studies that proposed early humans brought down a great range of game species with slings.

Alaska was a great place to be a kid.