Origin of money:

Money is the product of commodity exchange.

at the end of primitive society, the earliest currency was physical currency.

Generally speaking, nomadic people use livestock and hides to realize functions of money, while agricultural people use grains, fabrics, farm tools, pottery, seashells, pearls and jade as the earliest physical currency.

According to archaeological excavations, a large number of pottery pots were unearthed as sacrificial objects in late Neolithic sites such as Banpo. Dawenkou culture buried a large number of pig heads and jawbones, indicating that pigs and pottery had played the role of monetary wealth in the late primitive society.

But as we all know, the ancient physical currency with wide circulation was "shell".

as a physical currency, cattle, sheep, pigs and other livestock can't be divided, the whole grain will rot, there are too few pearls and jade, and the knives and shovels are heavy, so we finally concentrate on seashells as a physical currency.

seashells can be used as neck ornaments, which are valuable and easy to carry and count, so they have been selected as the main currency in long-term commodity exchange.

In archaeological excavations, a large number of natural shells were unearthed in the ruins of Xia and Shang Dynasties, and shells were used as physical currency until the Spring and Autumn Period

The development of money:

The earliest currency in China was shell coins originated from Shang Dynasty.

With the expansion of commodity exchange, the number of Beibi coins in circulation is increasing.

because of the limited resources of natural shellfish, imitation shellfish appeared.

at first, imitation shells were stone shells, bone shells and pottery shells, and later they were made of copper, which is copper shells.

The emergence of copper coins brought the ancient currency into a new era, and its development and wide circulation was a major turning point in the early currency development.

There are mainly four kinds of currency in circulation at this time-cloth currency, knife currency, ring currency and ant nose currency.

in 221 BC, Qin Shihuang unified China, and then implemented a series of measures to consolidate feudal centralization, and unified currency was one of them.

It is stipulated that a unified currency is used in the whole country. There are two kinds of unified currency: gold and copper coins. Gold is the top currency, and copper coins are the bottom currency. The word "half two" is cast on the face of the currency, indicating that the weight of each coin is half two, which is called half two in history.

other property is prohibited from circulating as money.

Extended information:

Classification of currency:

1. Currency

This is a coin in the original sense, and the purpose of issuing it is to "circulate".

2. Collecting coins

The purpose of issuing collecting coins is not to serve circulation, but to serve coin collection, which is usually sold by sovereign issuing institutions at a price higher or much higher than the face value

3. Investment coins

The purpose of issuing investment coins is neither circulation in the usual sense nor conventional collection, but to preserve and increase value.