The Early History of Money

Tracing the origins of money

Lydian coins, c. 600 BC, are the earliest known coins in the world. Image source: Wikimedia Commons

Money.

We can’t live without it, yet some can’t get enough. Somerset Maugham, one of the highest-paid novelists of the 1930s, has a point. We can’t imagine living an everyday life without money.

The earliest humans can be traced to 300,000 years ago, in Morocco's Jebel Irhoud archaeological site. However, the origins of money in human evolution are recent.

Sometime during our evolution, we became reliant on money, and we can’t do without it. So, when did humans first use money?

That depends on how you define money.

Are we talking about a system of exchange where a tender stating “I owe you” was used? Or are we referring to money as a medium of commerce in the traditional sense? When you imagine the earliest use of money, you may think about the first coins before the rise of paper currency.

To prevent confusion, we will not discuss the speculative nature of prehistoric money, when barter was…