[abc_lisper]

I think the harsh conditions in Australia, where there a thousand ways to die, put the onus on truth and preservation of it in the oral tradition. Unlike most other cultures where it's kind of ok to gradually deviate from the truth. It is worth paying attention to the aborigine stories.They have also made astronomical observations that are pretty accurate to the date. https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/australias-indigenous-peopl...

Singing/Ballads are also popular way of preserving information fidelity. Homer's works were based on ballads. We don't put premium on memory now, but before the invention of printing press, memory techniques were widely studied and used.

[kelipso]

It kind of feels like a local optima situation where they relied on memory so much that they didn't feel the need for writing. Either that or the fact that there was no writing for so long resulted in them specialising in memory techniques a lot.

[yummypaint]

We didn't evolve reading and writing. Literacy is just a recently developed hack. Memorization was the only way for the vast majority of human history.

[snowpid]

Who is we?