The Atlatl Wasn't Invented Once It Was Reinvented Everywhere

Archaeologists found atlatl spear-throwers emerged independently across multiple cultures in prehistoric North America, but the real discovery is that we've been framing this as a binary choice between invention and contact when human prehistory was far messier and more connected than either option allows.

Atlatl technology appeared in separate North American cultures without documented evidence of direct transmission between them.

The discovery forces a reckoning with how we categorize prehistoric human innovation as either independent or borrowed.

Evidence suggests prehistoric peoples were mobile and networked enough that the binary choice between convergent evolution and cultural diffusion may be a false frame entirely.