History Of Money

A World Without Money

        Money, in some form, has been part of human history for at least the last 3,000 years. Before that time, it is assumed that a system of bartering was likely used.
Bartering is a direct trade of goods and services - I'll give you a stone axe if you help me kill a mammoth - but such arrangements take time. You have to find someone who thinks an axe is a fair trade for having to face the 12-foot tusks on a beast that doesn't take kindly to being hunted. If that didn't work, you would have to alter the deal until someone agreed to the terms. One of the great achievements of money was increasing the speed at which business, whether mammoth slaying or monument building, could be done.
         Slowly, a type of prehistoric currency involving easily traded goods like animal skins, salt and weapons developed over the centuries. These traded goods served as the medium of exchange even though the unit values were still negotiable. This system of barter and trade spread across the world, and it still survives today on some parts of the globe.
Asian Cutlery
        Sometime around 1,100 B.C., the Chinese moved from using actual tools and weapons as a medium of exchange to using miniature replicas of the same tools cast in bronze. Nobody wants to reach into their pocket and impale their hand on a sharp arrow so, over time, these tiny daggers, spades and hoes were abandoned for the less prickly shape of a circle, which became some of the first coins. Although China was the first country to use recognizable coins, the first minted coins were created not too far away in Lydia (now western Turkey).

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