Total aside, but this notion that before the invention of minted coinage all exchange was done via "barter" is just completely ahistorical. Before currency exchange was done via favors. Instead of countable coins, you contributed to your community and built up a reserve of "honor" or "cred" that you could use to call in favors when you needed any kind of help or support. It's usually referred to as a "gift economy," but people get thrown off by the term "gift." It's less about the stuff you give or do and more about the obligations you have as a member or friend of any given community.
The main thing to remember is that people just had a very different way of thinking about the exchange of goods and services back then. It wasn't about financial transactions or maximizing economic returns, it was much more about building up cred and standing within a community.
Where financial transactions really come in is being able to facilitate exchange between two communities where that underlying foundation of trust and persistent social connection doesn't exist. This is why marriages between "clans" or "tribes" or whatever would often be marked by exchange of things that hold value like livestock, heirlooms and handicrafts, or parcels of land. These aren't really "barter" exchanges though, they're more like collateral or shows of good will between two groups or people who don't necessarily have a strong basis for trusting each other.
This is why coinage really starts to come around when you have large kingdoms or empires. Those rulers mint the coins because they control larger swathes of territory than could be governed by the sort-of-feudal interractions of familial obligation. So you start keeping track of things via precious metals instead.
The main thing to remember is that people just had a very different way of thinking about the exchange of goods and services back then. It wasn't about financial transactions or maximizing economic returns, it was much more about building up cred and standing within a community.
Where financial transactions really come in is being able to facilitate exchange between two communities where that underlying foundation of trust and persistent social connection doesn't exist. This is why marriages between "clans" or "tribes" or whatever would often be marked by exchange of things that hold value like livestock, heirlooms and handicrafts, or parcels of land. These aren't really "barter" exchanges though, they're more like collateral or shows of good will between two groups or people who don't necessarily have a strong basis for trusting each other.
This is why coinage really starts to come around when you have large kingdoms or empires. Those rulers mint the coins because they control larger swathes of territory than could be governed by the sort-of-feudal interractions of familial obligation. So you start keeping track of things via precious metals instead.