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The capacity to cooperate is not uniquely human, unless we limit it to conscious cooperation. Markets are just another example of natural order, as fruit trees and fruit-eating animals, plants and root microbes, lichen and trees, etc. Most people don’t “understand” markets. They simply know how to trade, or just simply how to communicate needs to each other, as even a dog does. If we didn’t trade before, that was because there was something stopping us, not because we didn’t know how.
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You’re basically asking how natural orders form and why they work out so remarkably well. This is an involved discussion and there’s no need to re-invent the wheel: read Hayek on spontaneous order, Hasnas on common law, Krasilnikov on symbiotic microflora and this forum thread.