It's ridiculous and completely made up. He's treating prehistory like history -- we have absolutely no clue how this stuff evolved. Based on the role of art in

It's ridiculous and completely made up. He's treating prehistory like history -- we have absolutely no clue how this stuff evolved. Based on the role of art in history, it's highly likely that people did what they did with gold because religion / witch doctory, not economics. "Rich people" with lots of stuff in the history we know about were rich because of force and threat, not trade. Edited to add: that doesn't mean trade didn't happen, just that people mostly weren't "rich" off of it.