Listen & Learn: History of Money

Learn why we pay for things in coins and bills

Pre-listening vocabulary

• exchange: to trade something for something else
• barter system: a system where people obtain things by trading other things
• staple: a common item that most people use
• livestock: animals that people keep for food or resources, such as cows, pigs, or sheep
• impractical: difficult to do
• mint: a place where currency is made
• transaction: an exchange of money and items
• counterfeit: fake money

Listening activity

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Gapfill exercise

For thousands of years, people have exchanged goods. The earliest people known to use a barter system were Mesopotamian tribes around 6000 BCE. To make trading simpler, tribes created a currency out of staple items like or livestock. However, this was often impractical, especially when people needed to trade over long . Some of the first items used as money were clay tokens in Mesopotamia and seashells in China. Around 2500 BCE, Mesopotamians began using silver shekels, the first metal . The first kingdom to make its own official currency was Lydia. To show that the coins were official, the kingdom’s mints stamped images on them. Ancient Greece and Rome later used coins stamped with the faces of their and rulers. Paper money originated in China in the 7th century CE. It made large transactions easier, but it also made counterfeits a bigger problem. Today, many paper bills include special materials or to protect against counterfeiters.

Comprehension questions

See answers below

1. The best word for items like salt and livestock is
   a. mints
   b. tokens
   c. staples
   
2. The first metal coins were
   a. Chinese tokens
   b. Mesopotamian shekels
   c. Greek drachmas
   
3. The first kingdom to make its own official currency was
   a. Lydia
   b. China
   c. Rome

Discussion/essay questions

1. One of the most common sayings about money is that it doesn’t buy happiness. Do you agree or disagree?
2. If the world had a barter system, what do you think you would contribute?

Transcript

For thousands of years, people have exchanged goods. The earliest people known to use a barter system were Mesopotamian tribes around 6000 BCE. To make trading simpler, tribes created a currency out of staple items like salt or livestock. However, this was often impractical, especially when people needed to trade over long distances. Some of the first items used as money were clay tokens in Mesopotamia and seashells in China. Around 2500 BCE, Mesopotamians began using silver shekels, the first metal coins. The first kingdom to make its own official currency was Lydia. To show that the coins were official, the kingdom’s mints stamped images on them. Ancient Greece and Rome later used coins stamped with the faces of their gods and rulers. Paper money originated in China in the 7th century CE. It made large transactions easier, but it also made counterfeits a bigger problem. Today, many paper bills include special materials or ink to protect against counterfeiters.

Answers to comprehension questions

1c 2b 3a