Oral tradition: Storytelling as specialized skill that people develop a comparative advantage in due to productivity declines with other skills

Information transmission and the oral tradition: Evidence of a late-life service niche for Tsimane Amerindians. Eric Schniter, Nathaniel T. Wilcox, Bret A. Beheim, Hillard S. Kaplan, Michael Gurven. Evolution and Human Behavior, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2017.10.006

From the introduction: In this paper, we investigate story learning and storytelling among Tsimane foragerhorticulturalists.After identifying 54 story-knowledgeable adults using the Skills Survey (Schniter et al., 2015), we surveyed them about their knowledge, telling and sourcing of 120 traditional Tsimane stories. We evaluate whether age patterns in reported knowledge and storytelling are consistent with predictions derived from ECT [Embodied Capital Theory] concerning the timing of skill maturation. We test whether storytelling is a common skill enabled by ability with other common skills, or whether storytelling is a specialized skill that people develop a comparative advantage in due to productivity declines with other skills. We also assess whether storytelling propensity is sensitive to the size and composition of potential audiences, consistent with a fitness-enhancing strategy. Finally, we evaluate whether reports of whom stories were learned from support a model of vertical, oblique, or horizontal oral tradition transmission.

Keywords: Oral tradition; Information transmission; Storytelling; Expertise; Development; Life history theory

My commentary: Which is to say, intellectuals, artists, the professoriat have low productivity in normal skills needed to sustain their own life and of their offspring and they live of their sorcery with words...