Why Did The Aztec Use Of Atlatls

The atlatl was a revolutionary tool that was used by humans more than 25,000 years ago. Different cultures and periods had their own differences and uses, when it came to making the atlatl. An atlatl is a spear-throwing weapon, it was made for leverage and to achieve greater velocity. It all depended on how they used their atlatl, like was it used for hunting, or was it used for warfare. The Aztecs used the atlatl in an different way than how a human would use it in the Upper Paleolithic. The Aztecs lived in the Valley of Mexico, in Tlaltecuhtli, and their peak of civilization was around 1350-1519 CE (Feder). They ruled under the socio-political system, which means everything was ruled by an Emperor, but each city-state was was also ruled by the local nobles. The city had a population of more than 1 million citizens and more in the hinterlands. The Aztecs always engaged in warfare to gain territory, and political domain. According to Feder, in The Past In Perspective, the Emperor didn’t force one religion, so the citizens were free to whatever they believed in and continued their practices. They only had to pay tribute to the Emperor

The Atlatl was in use from 250 CE, but during the explosion of Mesoamerica the use of an atlatl, for the Aztecs, was used for warfare, not for hunting large animals (Mathews). The vast amount of food producers provided surplus to the citizens, so there was no need for hunting. At different sites we could see the use of the atlatl in many different ways. At the site of El Tajin, there are murals of soldiers holding an atlatl in their hands (Aguilar-Moreno). When the Spanish invaded the Aztecs they wrote about how they used Atlatls as weapons (Aguilar-Moreno). There are very few physical evidence of the use of an atlatl. But the few that were discovered are very elaborate, and