We have seen that people, long before the invention of currencies, depended on the exchange of goods and services for getting by. But what were the things worthy of transaction? Strange enough, there were goods ranging from feathers to gold!
Hard to believe, isn’t it? Well, historians note that small figures carved out of gold were used by the Aztecs for exchange, whereas rings of gold, copper and bronze were used by the Egyptians.
In countries like India, cattle were largely used as a means of making payment. Those with a larger number of cattle were considered rich then, just as we now consider people with substantial savings wealthy. Yet another item of exchange was rice, as used by the Chinese.
However, some countries followed ways that seemed quite unconventional- as in Papua New Guinea where people used canine teeth for bartering, or Ghana, where they used quart pebbles, Yap Island where they chose to trade lime stone discs, and the Solomon Islands where they resorted to the exchange of feathers!
Studies show that the items of trade varied from country to country. Bartering of slaves too, was considered a mode of payment in Ancient Rome and Greece. But as time went on, goods were slowly replaced by other forms of money like shell money and salt money.