Atlatls were used in North America by a few tribes, I think.

My brother and I made a couple up, along with 6' long "darts" with replaceable obsidian and flint heads (called footed shafts). We used heavy hardwood "foots" with 160gr. arrow field points for good flight. The 'tail' end was steered by 6" fletches, just like arrows.

We threw them all one afternoon at a Highschool's football field. The next day, we had the worse case of tendenitis EVER! The pain was excruciating.

After getting over that, we threw a little, daily and worked up to it. It was fun and quite decent accuracy could be obtained at up decent ranges - 150feet or so. Max flight was over 200feet.

My atlatl's handle was 26" long. We were both "spear chuckers" in high school 'track and field' and base ball players so throwing long and hard was common to both of us.