A history of money and why we need it!
I had the chance recently to look into the history of money for a project i was working on for a business course. This study led me to a great website where i found the majority of these answers...
It seems...
"....money originated very largely from non-economic causes - from tribute as well as trade, from blood-money and bride-money as well as from barter, from ceremonial and religious rites as well as from commerce, from ostentatious ornamentation as well as from acting as the common drudge between economic men.
Even in modern circumstances money still yields powerfully important psychic returns such as in an individual's social rank and standing, or a nation's position in the GNP league table. Thus money, more than ever in our monetarist era, needs to be widely interpreted to include discussion not only of currency and banking, but also savings banks, building societies, hire purchase finance companies and the fiscal framework on those not infrequent occasions when fiscal policy conflicts with or complements the operation of monetary policy. In this regard, even in medieval and earlier periods these wider aspects were of considerably greater importance than is conventionally believed...."
More information, including a timeline of the history of money, can be found here...