Taking your toddler hunting is nothing new in Wyoming, or in human history for that matter.
There’s evidence that even before this place was called Wyoming, stone-age hunters took their kids hunting with them, said a University of Wyoming anthropologist who has delved into the subject.
Randy Haas has researched whether paleolithic hunters packed their tots along on hunts.
As part of his research, he started practicing with an ancient weapon called an atlatl with his 1-year-old son Hank snug on his torso in a pack.
It mirrored the experience of hunter Ryder Seely of Wheatland, which Haas said tells him he’s on the right track with his research on how ancient hunters might have done the same.
This fall, Seely shot a huge mule deer buck with a bow while his daughter, Lainey, 1, snoozed in a kiddie pack on his back.
Haas said he was delighted to see a Cowboy State Daily story about Seely’s hunt. It shows that his research reflects what hunters are still doing today.
“It was just a total, wonderful coincidence,” said Haas, who is an assistant professor in UW’s department of anthropology.
Atlatl Even Older Than Archery
Going all the way back about 12,000 years ago, Paleo-Indians who hunted in what is now Wyoming didn’t even have bows and arrows.
Instead, they hunted with the atlatl, one of the most ancient projectile weapons.
It’s a simple design. The user attaches a large dart — sort of an arrow on steroids — to a stick held in their throwing arm. With a flinging motion, the dart is sent flying much farther and faster than it would by just throwing it.
It’s a tough weapon to master, as some Wyoming residents found out while trying to use atlatls at an archeology event this summer in Laramie.
It was evident that, if they had to rely on the atlatl to get food, many would probably have starved.
The Myth Of ‘Man The Hunter’
Haas grew up in a family of hunters and carries on that tradition. He’s also always been interested in ancient tools and hunting weapons like the atlatl.
So, a career in archeology has been perfect for him. He makes his own atlatls, and practices enough with them to be highly accurate.
It’s not legal now to hunt with atlatls in Wyoming, but Haas still enjoys practicing with them any chance he gets.
It’s a way for him to step into the world of ancient hunters, who were long assumed to be exclusively men.
But the 2018 excavation of a 9,000-10,000-year-old human burial site in the Andes mountains in Peru challenged that assumption.
The human remains were buried with a full kit of hunting gear, including heads for atlatl darts, stone game skin scrappers and skinning blades.
At first it was presumed the human remains belonged to man, but further testing proved a woman had been buried there with the hunting gear.
The more Haas and others dug into the evidence, as well as the current practices of Indigenous people in Peru, the more it became evident that the “myth of ‘man, the hunter,’” might not hold up, he said.
There’s increasing evidence that ancient women hunted, too.
‘He Would Giggle’
That got Haas to thinking, if Stone Age men and women went out hunting together, who watched the kids?
Maybe they both did, taking the kids with them.
So a few years ago, he decided to test whether it was possible to fling an atlatl dart with killing force and accuracy while packing a small child.
His son Hank, then 1, was a perfect test subject.
“I thought, ‘I have a son, and I go hunting. Can I do this with my son. And if I was an atlatl hunter, could I do it with him?’” he said.
He strapped Hank into a kiddie pack and started flinging darts. He quickly discovered that having the toddler on his back had no discernable effect on the force and accuracy of his throws.
What’s more, Hank thought it was cool.
“He was enjoying it,” Haas said. “He could kind of sense the moment when I took my stance and took aim. He would just get quiet and watch. And then he would giggle.”
Atlatls Took Down Everything In Wyoming
There have been burial sites with women and hunting gear discovered in this region as well, including one in Colorado, Haas said.
That points toward women always having hunted in this area, as many continue to do today. And Haas said that his experiments with the atlatl indicate that Stone Age moms and dads took their children with them, just as Seely did with his daughter.
Thousands of years ago, hunters went after all of the same game that modern hunters do — deer, elk, moose, pronghorn and such, he said.
They also had some massive beasts to chase that have since gone extinct, such as mammoths.
Passing The Tradition Down
Regardless of the time frame and the animals being pursued, it looks as if hunting has been a family activity going back thousands and thousands of years.
Haas said he’s already made a miniature atlatl for Hank, now 4, and his son can’t wait to try it.
Paleolithic hunters probably started their children out with mini atlatls at about that age. And the kids might have been taking down game by about 10 or 11.
Hank will have to wait until he’s 12 to follow in his father’s footsteps, as that’s the minimum age to hunt big game in Wyoming.
Though he hunts with bows and rifles, not atlatls, Haas said it’s a great tradition to carry forward.
“I’ve always had an interest in hunting. I’ve always been an outdoorsman, I was very lucky to torn those interests into a career,” he said.
Contact Mark Heinz at mark@cowboystatedaily.com
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
