Storytelling to Promote Cooperation

A study conducted by UCL had brought out the result that the art of storytelling promoted co-operation amongst the hunter-gatherers before the advent of organized religion.

The study showed us that the hunter gatherer storytellers were an essential element in promoting co-operation before the managed and organizes system of agriculture, society and high god moralization emerged. These storytellers were even more popular that the top class foragers and also had better reproductive success. This led to better co-operation between the members of the family.

The research was led by Daniel Smith, Andrea Migliano and Lucio Vinicius from UCL's Department of Anthropology and funded by the Leverhulme Trust. It was found that more than 35,000 years ago, a hunter-gatherer group descended from the first colonisers of Philippines. They asked three elders to tell stories that they usually tell their children and each other. This ended up with 4 stories in three nights. All the stories were about humanized natural entities and promoted sex equality and co-operation between the sexes, which is common among the forager groups.

Consistent interpretation led to us believing that Agta camps with an increased proportion of a skilled story-teller had better co-operation between its members.

By: Srishti Anand                                                                 

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171205120029.htm