be made lighter (by a factor of five or more) and to less exacting tolerances. This allowed for more forgiving flint knapping. Greater mass becomes an advantage over archery when penetration is an overwhelming concern, as when harpooning sea mammals. This class of dart was used by aboriginal Arctic hunters such as the Aleut until fairly recently. Reconstructions Darts, plumbata and atlatls have been constructed by modern enthusiasts, either with ancient materials and methods or with high technology borrowed from modern archery. While some do this in the context of anthropology or mechanical engineering, many view the practice as a sport, and throw competitively for distance and/or for accuracy. Throws of almost have been recorded. Types of traditional darts The darts in use by the developers of the English language were used throughout Europe for much of its military history, though they were never a dominant weapons technology. They have also lent their name to quite a few weapons from other cultures. Thrown darts It is quite reasonable to speculate the darts used with atlatls were adapted from hand-thrown darts, which in turn were derived from light javelins. In Europe, short but heavy-pointed darts were sometimes used in warfare. These had a length of about and resembled an arrow with a long head and short shaft. The Roman model, the plumbata, was weighted with lead. In some legions, five of these were carried inside each soldier's shield; reconstructions show a range of or more when thrown overhand in the fashion of a German stick grenade. Feathered darts Feathered spears, often called darts or javelins, were used in medieval and Renaissance Europe, both as ceremonial objects and as weapons. It is possible no examples have survived, presumably due to their fragility or the deterioration of their fletching making them indistinguishable from spears, but they appear in multiple illustrations from the 15th and 16th century. As ceremonial items, they are shown held similar to scepters by military commanders and leaders such as Emperor Maximilian I. Many other illustrations show large darts being wielded as weapons, either on the battlefield or in smaller engagements such as judicial battles. Depictions show them as being four to seven feet long, with arrow-like feather fletching, barbed points and thick shafts comparable to conventional polearms, presumably able to serve for both throwing and hand-held striking. One such example has historically been depicted on French and English pattern