It seems that we use our language, not just to cooperate, but to draw rings around our cooperative groups and to establish identities, and perhaps to protect our knowledge and wisdom and skills from being stolen from outside.
Yes. But we thought we needed something general about woolly mammoths in our introduction, to establish that they were related to our modern elephant, and they lived thousands of years ago in the last ice age.
Guilds were set up to provide lodging and employment for the emigrants, for a fee of course. The fee ensured that the worker would be paid a decent wage and that his employer would not deceive him.
Now, it's possible to be a prominent person without being eminent, since eminence depends on respect which is earned through skill, education, public recognition.