Ed Krivoniak of Pittsburgh writes:

About 9,500 years ago in the Mesopotamian region of Sumer, ancient accountants kept track of farmers' crops and livestock by stacking small pieces of baked clay, almost like the tokens usedin board games today. One piece might signify a bushel of grain, while another with a different shape might represent a farm animal or a jar of olive oil.

Those humble little ceramic shapes might not seem have much in common with today's $100 bill, whose high-tech anti-counterfeiting features include a special security thread designed to turn pinkwhen illuminated by ultraviolet light, let alone with credit-card swipes and online transactions that for many Americans are rapidly taking the place of cash. But the roots of those modern modes ofpayment, may lie in the Sumerians' tokens. Such early accounting tools ultimately evolved into a system of finance and money itself -a symbolic representation of value, which can be transferred fromone person to another as a payment for goods or services.

Civilization existed before money, but probably wouldn't have gotten very far without it. Ancient humans' invention of money was a revolutionary milestone. It helped to drive the development ofcivilization, by making it easier not just to buy and sell goods, but to pay workers in an increasing number of specialized trades-craftsmen, artists, merchants, and soldiers, to name a few. It alsohelped connect the world, by enabling traders to roam across continents and oceans to buy and sell goods, and investors to amass wealth.

Over the centuries, money continued to evolve in form and function. The ancient world's stones and shells gave way to coins, and eventually to paper currency and checks drawn upon bank accounts.Those physical tokens, in turn, gradually are being superseded by electronic ones, ranging from credit card transactions to new forms of digital currency designed for transferring and amassing wealthon the Internet.

To read the complete article, see:
HOW MONEY MADE US MODERN(http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/origins-the-journey-of-humankind/articles/how-money-made-us-modern/)

For more information on the series, see:
POWER OF MONEY(channel.nationalgeographic.com/origins-the-journey-of-humankind/episodes/power-of-money/)