Obviously they would have corpse's around and you are correct that visual
images are powerful. There is however some evidence that pre-literate
societies remember things differently than literate societies. Consider
this from an extended passage.
"Although fewer than one in a hundred adults in the West have this sort of
intense imagery, it is quite common in children and 'primitive' people. In
a 1960s study in a Nigerian village, a slide projector was set up and the
tribesmen were shown some pictures for thirty seconds each, ranging from a
photograph of a Nigerian bus stop to scenes from Alice in Wonderland.
Over half the villagers showed some level of photographic memory and about
a fifth had almost perfect recall, being able to do such things as trace
out the license plate number of a car from their memory of a picture, even
though they were unable to read or write. In one instance, a subject who
wrongly stated that the Cheshire cat from the Alice in Wonderland picture
was black was greeted with cries of scorn from the other eighteen villagers
who had watched the test. All of them were looking at the blank projector
screen as if the picture still lingered there like an after-image from
staring at the sun, and when they were asked how many could see the
original image, fourteen hands shot up.
"These impressive memory feats-- even though the mental pictures quickly
fade-- seem, however, more the sign of an uncluttered mind than of special
powers of memory. Members of the same tribe, brought up in cities and
educated to read and write, show far less ability, and studies in the West
have shown that while eight in a hundred children appear to have
photographic memories, nearly all loose their ability as they become
adults." ~ John McCrone, The Ape That Spoke, (New York: William Morrow and
Company, 1991), p.98-99
I recall as a teen, I used to be able to read a book and if someone raised
an issue covered in that book, I could visualize the page along with the
page number. It made finding information really easy. I can no longer do
that, unfortunately.
I think there is a danger of applying our experience with memory to
preliterate societies and then drawing conclusions, the wrong conclusions.
Printing is such a crutch. Before the printing press was invented, people
used to memorize long, long works of literature, like Beowulf. We don't
seem to be able to do that anymore.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution