The History of Money
Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More
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The History of Bartering
The idea of something that we think of as a unit of exchange probably developed at the rise of agriculture in mesopotamia. The first metals used as exchange were literally just metal objects or tools, usually copper or bronze. Silver and gold proved even more useful as a means of exchange. Coins seem to have been independently invented around the same time in china, india and greece. It's entirely possible that there was some earlier coin that spurred their innovation but if that's the case, we haven't found it yet.
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