I am interested in understanding the origin of writing and its impact on culture.

Assumedly, early peoples developed speech that led to oral traditions and knowledge passed through stories and litanies. I believe it is assumed that some stories may trace their origins to preliterate cultures due to common themes.

Then writing began and with it an accumulation of knowledge with greater endurance.

It is curious to me that much early writing, specifically cuneiform records, are transactions rather than culture. But at times there came to be historic texts that became holy, proscribing behaviors, the nature of gods and men, the nature of the universe and its origin, in essence defining culture itself.

While we cannot know for certain, it seems to me that preliterate cultures must have been more free to change and that the origin of writing may actually have stunted cultural advancement at the same time it caused the explosion of knowledge.

What are the current theories regarding the impact of writing on the creation of doctrine and its impact on the fluidity of culture? Did writing allow us to accumulate knowledge and slow the change of human behavior? What are the greatest facilitators of cultural change in the last several hundred years that allow peoples to change their behaviors in spite of sacred texts and tradition? Have systems of law become the new tools of codifying behavior and of allowing that gradual change?