[iguy]

What's the time-period for the firebreaks? I mean when these skills last used, even if on a smallish scale?

OK, ritualising a "how to ride a bicycle dance" seems like it could be a way to pass more information than a perfectly repeated poem / book. (Perhaps thinking of oral tradition as meaning Homer not how to chip flint is a blind spot in how we think about such things?) Would still be extremely curious to know of any examples where this actually happened.