I've picked up Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations again. In the early chapters he explains the division the labor as an obvious development from individuals being better at producing certain things (like arrows) in hunter/gatherer societies.
This explanation is obviously flawed. Hunter gatherer socieities existed for tens of thousands of years, presumably with varying skills in their members, without, complex divisions of labor coming about. In addition, hunter/gatherers exist side by side with labor divided societies. So, it doesn't seem as though it is as easily explained as saying people have different skills.

What was the catalyst that changed hunter/gatherer societies with social theories of property into producing societies with theories of individual property rights. Was it just an historical accident that occurred in one place and spread out, or is there a natural development process.
It's obvious that child producing/rearing could be a 'natural' division of labor, but humans existed for thousands of years with no more sophisticated divisions of labor than this.
Marx connects the division of labor with the acceptance of private property rights. This could be explained by men deciding to own women in order to own their children. If men don't own and control women, since women can be impregnated by multiple men, men won't have clear ownership rights to children. But there is evidence, according to feminist archaelogists that early human societies existed in which women were not property. So did women become property as a result of a prior theory of property and division of labor?

So what is the explanation for the division of labor? Is the best explanation something like Diamond's in Guns Germs and Steel. Is it a consequence of learning how to farm? If so, what is it about farming that necessitates the division of labor?

It's late so maybe I'm missing the obvious, but the answer does not seem clear to me tonight.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13