Money’s history is entwined with sex, religion, and politics, all of which are taboo subjects. After all, these are the guiding principles in our life, and money is at the center of them all. To put this in context, let’s start at the beginning because that’s an excellent place to start and speak about human faces, which I’ll go through in length in this post—the facades of money mirror the origins of people. As you can see, human history has been marked by three major revolutions: the formation of communities, civilization, and industry. Humanity is presently through its fourth big revolution, and these revolutions drastically alter our way of life. Equally crucial is that each stage of human evolution ushers in a new era of monetary and value exchange. That is why, when humankind and trade are through their fourth and fifth revolutions, it is critical to reflect on the past to comprehend the present and foresee the future.
The START
The earliest ancestors of humankind arose in Africa seven million years ago, and archaeologists in South Africa are currently tracing humankind’s existence seven million years later. They believe they are uncovering numerous missing connections in our past. A history that can be traced all the way back to the earliest hominid species. I hear you ask, “What is a hominid?” and “When did it exist?”
Geologists believe that during the Ice Age, the Eurasian and American tectonic plates clashed and subsequently settled, resulting in a substantial flat expanse in Africa. This new vast expanse was flat for hundreds of miles, as far as the eye could see, and the apes that lived here discovered there were no trees to climb. Instead, there’s nothing but flat plains, fruit, and grasses. This meant that the apes found it challenging to traverse over hundreds of miles on their hands and feet, so they began to stand up to make things simpler. This caused a shift in the brain’s wiring, which led to the first versions of what we now identify as human over thousands of years.
The finding of Lucy was the first link in this chain’s unraveling. Lucy is the first skeleton that could be cobbled together to indicate how these early human forms arose on the African plains in the post-Ice Age environment. Lucy is named after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson discovered the skeleton in Ethiopia in the early 1970s, and it is an early specimen of the hominid australopithecine, dating back to roughly 3.2 million years ago. The structure shows a tiny cranium comparable to that of most apes, as well as indications of a bipedal, upright walking posture similar to that of humans and other hominids. This evidence backs with the theory that bipedalism came before an increase in brain size in human evolution.
Since Lucy’s discovery, many more incredible discoveries have been made in South Africa’s “Cradle of Humankind,” a Unesco World Heritage site. In 1997, Ron Clarke discovered a nearly-complete Australopithecus skeleton known as Little Foot, dating back to roughly 3.3 million years ago. What was the significance of Little Foot? Because intact fossilized hominid remains are nearly unheard of. The reason for this is that as earth sunk into the ground and remains were dispersed among the permeable caverns underneath, the bones were strewn over the globe. As a result, an intact skeleton is just as likely to be discovered as a quality Jedward album.
Archaeologists recently uncovered the Rising Star Cave system, where several remains were unearthed, leading experts to conclude it was a burial cemetery. It has also resulted in the designation of a new human relative known as Homo Naledi.
Overall, the human tree of life includes Homo erectus, Homo floresiensis, Homo habilis, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo Naledi, and Homo neanderthalensis umbrella of the Homo species, of which we are Homo sapiens.
Finding MONEY
As a result of his ability to operate in groups of hundreds, man became civilized and dominating. This was a unique kind of communication for Homo sapiens since it allowed us to build common beliefs in the Sun, Moon, and Earth and Gods, Saints, and Priests over time.
As we came to have shared ideals, we eventually came to agree on having leaders. This is a significant distinction between humans and monkeys. When asked if apes believe in God, anthropologist Desmond Morris said unequivocally that they do not. Morris, an atheist, authored The Naked Ape in the 1960s, claiming that humans, unlike apes, “believe in a hereafter because part of the satisfaction derived from our creative works is the idea that, via them, we shall ‘live on’ after we die.”
This is part of our standard belief system, which allows us to collaborate, live together, and bond in the hundreds of thousands. As a result, religion became an essential component of humankind’s essence of order and structure, and our leaders were the priests in the temples who were closest to our beliefs. However, when man began to settle into communities and develop an ordered structure, additional difficulties arose. The man had previously been a nomadic species, exploring the earth for sustenance and traveling from season to season to feed and forage. As a result, we devised a barter system to swap values when our food supplies were depleted, or other groups had more significant resources.
Let’s trade pineapples for maize; you have pineapples, I have corn. Let’s the trade: you have brilliant colorful beads, and I have powerful stone and flint. The barter system functioned successfully, allowing many groups to thrive and exist. We eventually saw big cities emerge. Jericho, some say, is the world’s oldest surviving city, going back over 10,000 years. Others might refer to Eridu, which arose 7,500 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia near Basra, Iraq. In any case, both cities are pretty old.
Thousands of people flocked to these cities as they grew, attracted by their ability to support sophisticated, civilized life. The city of Eridu was formed because it drew together three ancient civilizations: the Samarra culture from the north; the Sumerian culture, which included the world’s oldest society; and the Semitic culture, which had historically been nomadic with herds of sheep and goats; and the Sumerians were the ones who invented money.
Money is a new common belief framework that religious leaders constructed to keep power. Because the barter system failed in Ancient Sumer, the Sumerians developed money. Humankind’s gathering into bigger groups and farming caused it to fall apart. The farming and settlement constructions ushered in a new period in human history. People used to forage and hunt; today, they live in communities and cultivate together. Then, the rest of the things that happened later to come to today’s level are the history.
