This, a hundred billion times this. It’s been a nagging, cavernous hole in the explanation every time I hear the overly simplistic “barter system was replaced w

This, a hundred billion times this. It’s been a nagging, cavernous hole in the explanation every time I hear the overly simplistic “barter system was replaced with the eventual invention of money”. It not only denies the existence of more sophisticated systems of barter that include any sort of “futures” being bartered, “pigs now for part of my apple harvest in a couple months”… It also denies the existence of any systems where “money” is simply just the “most convenient commodity to barter with”. If everyone has these handy similarly sized hunks of gold and trade them cause it’s more convenient than carrying a chicken, that doesn’t mean “your using money”. If I’m happy not having gold and can simultaneously function in the “local economy” entirely with my chickens, I may use “gold”/“money” purely as a temporary item of escrow. I give gold to a shepherd to deliver sheep to my barn but he gives back the gold and takes some of my chickens when he leaves after the delivery… basically the “obviously money replaced barter cause it’s better” is a bullshit story that no one seems to give a shit trying to find evidence and I’m kind of sick of it. /rant over So where are the serious historical, evidence based research economists to be found? Id love a well researched history that had some evidence of past social behaviour with respect to barter/money.