When Did Humans Start Using Money?

Tracing the origins of money

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

Money is like a sixth sense — and you can’t make use of the other five without it. W. Somerset Maugham

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