alt Hacker NewsI'm sure that many aspects of work and specialization are as old as humanity itself. Don't you think there was one guy in the tribe who was really good at starting fires, one woman who knew where to find the good berries, one guy who was the best at fixing spears, and some people who weren't that good at anything so they just joined the effort wherever they were needed? You don't have to have a physical exchange of currency or a 40hr desk job for that to be true.
You can read up on hunter-gatherer societies if you're interested.
Labor and specialization are not unique to modern-day work. Both hunter-gatherer societies and our modern industrial society have labor and specialization. But they function in completely different ways.
Specialization in industrial society is much more complex whereas in hunter-gatherer societies it is generally based on age and gender. Hunter-gatherer societies are generally more egalitarian, there is more skill overlap between members of the group, expertise is leveraged in less formal and less institutionalized ways, learning is more distributed and knowledge is more likely to be treated as communal.