I seriously doubt that currency (a standardized medium of exchange) existed in prehistoric times. But barter economy certainly did, we have plenty of archeological evidence for it.

Still, even the barter economy was used for mostly "optional" activities. People were not dependent on it for survival, a tribe could live just fine on their own, without trade.

> What is the best evidence for this historically?

Mostly archeological. There are many burials that contain items that were clearly not locally sourced. In some cases, they had to be transported for thousands of kilometers.

And quite often this was done for non-functional items such as jewelry or dyes.

The Roman Empire was basically modern. It had currency, banks, loans with interest, etc.

At the same time, the Slavic countries up north still were pre-monetary. There was little to no currency, but there was extensive trade in fur, salt, and other goods.

Was there money in pre-1778 Hawaii? Not that I have been able to figure out. I believe it was a gift economy.

There certainly was specialization in Hawaii, and with a population of over 100,000 would seem like a good counter-example.

> Barter economy cannot sustain any of that, because barter economy does not scale.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_money , "There is no evidence, historical or contemporary, of a society in which barter is the main mode of exchange;[23] instead, non-monetary societies operated largely along the principles of gift economy and debt."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-monetary_economy#Other_mon... list other money-less systems including "the Incas and possibly, also the empire of Majapahit". Both were empires.

> for thousands of years

It depends on how you define money. Coins didn't really exist until the 7th century BC, that doesn't mean long-range widescale trade did not exist prior to that for 1000+ years but they didn't generally use money (in the way we would understand it at least) so the boundary between using money and barter wasn't really that clear.

I'm not an expert in this so maybe am just off base.

But the key difference (I have been told) is what you can do with that accounting.

Like, I can walk into a shop and buy anything on the wall with money, whereas that kind of accounting may have very different implications for what you can do with it.

Additionally, I can take money that I gathered from one source and use it somewhere else, and it's fungible in that I can use it anywhere else in the system. If I have a debt to one person in earlier systems that debt may be non-transferable.

If those two elements are true, it becomes very difficult to do a lot of the things that we think of as money, specifically interest and massive accumulation.

It assumes that Inca used formal loans and debts. They certainly used accounting for resources, though.

There's a lot of anthropological and archaeological evidence to the contrary. People indeed had trade and exchanges in ancient times, but these did not aalways necessitate a formalized system of money as we understand it today. The early forms of trade were often based on complex systems of credit and debt that were deeply intertwined with social relationships and trust within communities. David Graeber's work, "Debt: the first 5000 years," highlights that for more than 5,000 years before the invention of coins, humans extensively used such credit systems to buy and sell goods, long before the existence of coins or cash.

While it is true that trade is evident from ancient times, with goods found at burial sites that originated thousands of miles away, this does not automatically imply that all trade was facilitated by a commoditized asset serving as a universal medium of exchange. In many cases, goods like salt, furs, and metal objects were indeed used in trade, but they were part of a broader system of barter and reciprocal exchange, which could function effectively without a standardized form of money.

Regarding the role of social relationships in finance, while it's accurate that relationships remain crucial, especially for large transactions in modern times, this does not discount the fact that in the past, community trust and social bonds were often the primary means of securing credit, not collateral or commoditized money. This is evident in how competitive markets and the scarcity of trust can affect transactions, as Graeber notes through an anecdote where mutual aid within a community was a given, not a transaction requiring formal repayment.

The idea of a pre-commercial time where 'people didn't care about money' may indeed be fictional, but it's more nuanced than simply saying they used money in the way we do now. They cared about value and exchange, but these were frequently managed through social mechanisms rather than through impersonal, commoditized money. It's essential to understand that the concept of money has evolved and that early forms of trade and credit were valid economic systems in their own right, even if they don't match the monetary systems we are familiar with today.

indeed, the comparison of quipu to modern digital money highlights the diversity of forms that 'money' can take. However, the fundamental difference lies in the functions and roles that these systems serve within their respective societies. The quipu was primarily an accounting tool, part of a complex system of record-keeping used by the Incas, which facilitated the administration of their economy, particularly in terms of tribute and state resources. It did not serve as a medium of exchange in the same way coins or modern digital money do.

modern money, whether digital or physical, serves several key functions: it is a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. While the quipu certainly functioned as a unit of account, it's not clear that it served as a medium of exchange or a store of value. These are essential characteristics that define 'money' in the economic sense.

the impersonal nature of coinage and modern digital money allows them to facilitate trade and economic activity on a scale and with a degree of anonymity that's not possible with a system like quipu, which is deeply embedded in the social and political fabric of the society that uses it.

The transition to coinage and later to digittal transactions represents a move towards a more standardized, divisible, and portable form of money that can be used in a wide range of transactions, with or without a pre-existing relationship between the parties involved. This is quite different from the quipu, which was embedded in a specific cultural context and may not have been readily exchangeable or understood outside of that context.

So while it's tempting to draw parallels between ancient accounting systems and modern digital currencies, we must be careful not to conflate the two. Each serves its purpose within its particular economic and social milieu, with specific attributes and limitations that define its use as "money."