The Creation of a Valuable Artefact as an Honest (Costly) Signal:

"Costly signals are signals that honest communicators can display but that dishonest communicators generally cannot. Cultural artifacts and displays that are admired seem to function as costly signals because they are difficult, often impossible, for deceptive signalers to create. A brilliant work of history, say by Thucydides, displays a prodigious intellect and profound coalitional understanding; therefore, very, very few people can produce it. A great history book, then, is, inter alia, a signal of its author’s underlying intelligence; and intelligence is a valuable trait for most coalitions. Thus, those who write insightful works of history are given status, which motivates others to create and display valuable cultural artifacts."

"Because status striving is probably a fundamental human motivation (Anderson et al. 2015), because status increases (or increased) reproductive fitness, and because people in coalitions sedulously inspect each other’s coalitional values, it is likely that men and women have been motivated to signal underlying traits that were beneficial for coalitions to each other. And, as noted, men have faced stronger selection from coalitions and, therefore, produce more costly signals than women. Some traits are difficult to detect, such as intelligence, commitment, creativity, etc., but they can be communicated via easily perceivable displays (i.e., signals) (Cronk 2005; Winegard et al. 2018). Members of a coalition benefit from attending to such cultural displays because they provide invaluable information about the person. And people who possess valued traits benefit from communicating those to others. The problem: Cheaters, i.e., those with low valued traits, would be motivated to “lie” about possessing coveted traits."

Bo Winegard et al.