In ancient times, people used many different objects for trading goods. Rice was used in China, and dogs teeth in Papua New Guinea. Quartz pebbles were used in Ghana, and cowrie shells in India. Metal discs were used in Tibet, and limestones discs in Yap Island. The Aztecs used small golden fingures, the Egyptians used rings of bronze copper or gold and some ancient Africans used knives!
The objects chosen as early forms of money had to be easy to carry, to be durable so that they could be handed from person to person, and had to beaccepted by others as money because they had a certain value of their own.
Did you know that cattle were one of the earliest forms of money? The richest man in a region was one who owned the most cattle! Of course, cattle were not easy to carry around, and they had to be fed, and you could not cut a cow into parts to buy something small! So, grain, salt and other forms of 'money' gradually replaced cattle.
