Yeah, I remember that thread. I guess we got locked-out on that one, too. I think we were exploring the sexual preference/expression phenomena and it got too close to home for some folks. Oh well. That's the risk of thinking dangerously.

I do not know about ant speciation. I think the man to ask is E.O. Wilson. He sort of invented a conceptual field of discussion called, "sociobiology", largely from his research on ants, I think. I haven't read anything by him but I know he is lauded by most biologists who have read his books. If you want to pursue that particular line of enquiry, I think he'd be a great start. I understand he's a good writer, too.

Gosh, asking me to speak with any authority about specifics concerning the cultural evolution through specialization in human societies is going to put me way over the line of any credibility at all. If you accept that I do not know what I'm talking about, then I don't mind speculating.

You're right on the money concerning learning trade craft, I think. The child of a skilled worker is at a strong advantage in learning teh skill. If the child has any knack at all, the child could learn the trade better than another child could learn through trial and error. Additionally, you have all the taboos that grow-up around skills in clan/tribe cultures. I think the combination would tend to solidify skills in certain lineages. It may not be optimal, but it may still be the most stable solution. the inherited skilled worker may not produce the finest net possible, had another more skilled kid been trained, but the nets are still good enough for catching fish. Plus th eolder guy has a built-in incentive to encourage his progeny and discourage unrelated children--the biological imperative is to provide for the survival of one's own genes, not that other bozo's. So a suboptimal solution to net-makking is to leave it to the net family, which ensures adequate, if not perfect net production. And so forth.

However, when the tribe gets so big that clan allegience is less important, then there will be more competition between netmakers in different clans. Other clans may prefer one type of net over another so the prefered netmakers get the best trade goods, including marriage offers. And so forth.

If the population becomes so large that family/clan production is unable to keep-up, some other more efficient system may arise. This maybe the origin of the apprentice/journeyman/master system. Again, it may not produce an optimal product, but it produces an acceptible one. At that juncture, the guild system gains ascendency. It holds sway until demand is so great that mechanized mass-production becomes competitive. mass production produces a large volume of low-quality but acceptible and cheap products. The training methods for mass production are different from guild-based training and so the guild system becomes anachronistic and the split between formal education and labor is complete.