The earliest currency of human society is the shell, called "shell coin", more than 4,000 years ago, the entire East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Oceania, Africa are using the shell as a currency, the shell at that time can be described as an international common currency, which is probably the earliest "globalization" of human society.
So, the question is, are the people living by the sea millionaires at that time? Can you get rich by picking up shells by the sea?
Arab merchants used shells as currency, drawn in 1845
First: cigarettes can also be used as money
In the Western Han Dynasty chinese work "Shi Ji Ping Zhuan Shu", it is recorded: "Tai Shi Gong said: 'The road of agricultural, industrial and commercial trade is passable, and the currency of the turtle shell money and knife cloth is prosperous. In the economic activities of human society, there are actually many things that can be used as money. Turtles, shells, gold, money, knives, cloth can be, turtles refer to turtle shells; shells are shells; gold in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, mainly refers to bronze; money refers to shovels; knives refer to weapons - knives; cloth is cloth, linen cloth was also currency in the beginning, and there are records in the Book of Poetry that "the clams of the rogues, the holding of cloth trade silk, the bandits come to trade silk, and come to me to plot".
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the currencies circulating in various princely states had various shapes, and although copper coins were used as currency at that time, they still imitated the shape of some of the original goods, Qi, Yan, and Zhao popular knife coins, and the knife coins were like a knife; Zheng and Wei popular cloth coins, the cloth coins of the Warring States period were not the shape of a piece of cloth, but imitated the shovel of agricultural tools; money was actually a kind of shovel, which was the original meaning of the word "money"; gold refers to bronze. Gold, money, knives, and cloth have all become metal, and turtles and shells are still tangible turtle shells and shells, but the currency of the Chu kingdom, ant-nose money, is made of imitation shells, which are copper shells.
Bronze knife from 2000 BC to 1500 BC
In the Xia Shang Zhou period, in fact, any goods with use value can be used as money, even agricultural tools can be used as money, the Chinese word "money" is the meaning of shovel. The shell is not the only currency, but among the many currencies, there is a currency as the main circulating currency, and the "Salt and Iron Theory" says: "After the summer, xuanbei, the Zhou people with purple stone, and later (Spring and Autumn Warring States) or money knife cloth." ”
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, shells and agricultural tools were made into bronze currency, but it was very inconvenient to carry. Qin, Zhao, and Wei emerged as a more advanced currency called "round money", which is a copper coin with round holes. After Qin Shi Huang unified the world, he also unified currency, writing and weights and measures, so the currency unified the use of copper coins with circular square holes, and the use of copper coins continued until the late Qing Dynasty.
Copper coins from the Tang Dynasty
In ancient China, copper coins have always been the circulating currency, but copper coins are only used for small-scale commodity trading, and bulk commodity transactions use gold and silver, which is the so-called "gold bars" and "silver ingots". In fact, the ancients did not use silver ingots and gold bars in their daily lives, because silver and gold are precious metals and very expensive. The silver used in daily life is broken silver, large pieces of silver ingots, silver dollar treasure is actually used as storage currency, there was no bank in ancient times, people generally converted huge wealth into gold, silver collection, buried in the ground, some silver and gold are buried after, because of various special reasons, by the original owner forgotten, so it was discovered by modern people.
Any goods can be used as currency, cigarettes can actually be, in some prisons in modern society, prisoners often use cigarettes as money, in prisons, cigarettes are more common, but because of isolation from the outside world, cigarettes are relatively scarce, and there is also use value, so it can become a special currency, to achieve barter.
Copper coins and cigarettes can be used as currency, but shells used as currency are commodities that are scarcer than copper coins and cigarettes. Shells are actually the gold and silver of later generations, why do you say so?
Second: Shellcoin is very expensive
Our current paper money is measured by numbers, but the numbers also have units, the units of the renminbi are yuan, horns, and minutes, 10 are divided into 1 corner, and 10 corners are 1 yuan. The dollar is measured in dollars and cents, and 100 cents equals 1 dollar. Because it is decimal, we often ignore the existence of paper money units, in fact, the yuan is used for bulk goods transactions, and the horns and cents are small-scale commodity transactions. Ancient currencies were metal currencies, gold and silver were used for bulk goods trading, and copper coins were used for small-scale commodity transactions.
Shell coins are actually as precious as gold and silver, not the kind of ordinary shells that can be picked up at the beach when you go to the beach.
Shells that were once used as currency
Judging from the shell coins unearthed, the shells that were shells as shell coins at that time were actually "treasures", including tabby treasures, ring-patterned shellfish, Arvin shellfish, quasi-date shells, cargo shells and so on. There is a family of sea shells called "Baby Family", just like the cats, horses, and cattle on land.
Sea shells belonging to the "baby family" are now generally rare wild animals, and the shells of these marine organisms were often even more expensive and beautiful than tiger skins and deer skins in ancient times. Let's briefly introduce these shells:
Tabby baby, commonly known as tiger skin shell, is the shell of the black star snail, this creature is mainly distributed in the western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, tabby baby surface is smooth, like the porcelain enamel, very beautiful.
Tabby Baby
Ringed shellfish, commonly known as white shellfish teeth, are distributed in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, but mainly located in warm water areas, China's South China Sea is rich in ring shellfish.
Avin silk shell in China's coastal areas are more widely distributed, Avin silk shell is also called "Arabian treasure snail", the reason why it is called "Arabian treasure snail" is because the shell pattern of this sea shell resembles Arabic, Arabic shell is generally commonly known as "purple shell" in China, purple shell has medicinal value, although it is not very valuable, but it is not an ordinary shell.
Jujube shells are distributed in shallow seas, often hidden under the reef, and the shells of jujube shells are also very beautiful.
Cargo shells, also known as "yellow snails", live in the warm water areas of tropical and subtropical oceans, the color of the shells ranges from light yellow to dark yellow, and there is a layer of enamel on the surface, which is very smooth and beautiful. The loan shell itself is an ornament with aesthetic value.
Very nice ringshell
Therefore, the shells that can become money are relatively precious, in line with the characteristics of rarity and preciousness. Shells that can become money also have certain practical value, can be used as ornaments, in this regard and later gold, silver is similar, gold and silver can also be made into jewelry.
Third: Why is Bei coin eliminated?
Since shell coins are more precious and have certain decorative functions, why did later humans no longer use shells as currency? Because human metal smelting technology has advanced, the production of gold and silver is increasing, metal currency has replaced the shell, shell is after all a biological resource in the ocean, with the growth of social wealth, shell is not enough, people would rather make copper into the shape of a shell, rather than use real shells. Although the amount of gold, silver, copper, iron is large, but in the Northern Song Dynasty, the production of copper, but also obviously insufficient, so that there was a "money shortage", during the Han and Tang Dynasties, copper coins are the most important circulating currency, wealth is measured by the number of copper coins, to the Ming and Qing dynasties, the main circulating currency became silver, why from copper coins to silver? Because there is not enough copper ore. In fact, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, silver was the main circulating currency, and there were not so many silver mines, but it was precisely at this time that new shipping routes were opened, Europeans discovered the New World of america, and the silver mined by Europeans in the Americas flowed into China through trade, which supported the monetary system with silver as the main circulating currency.
The appearance of paper money during the Northern Song Dynasty was related to the insufficient supply of copper coins
If the world's wealth is now calculated in gold and silver, then the amount of gold and silver will be significantly insufficient, so metal money will inevitably be replaced by paper money. We now use paper money as the circulating currency, but some scholars believe that more than 90% of the world's total money is actually no physical paper money, just a number, these represent the wealth of the "number", in fact, there is no need to print paper money out, because paper money to some extent, reflects the credit relationship between people.
When calculating social wealth, even gold, silver, copper, iron, and paper money are not enough, think about it, is the shell of a living thing enough? If human beings have been using shells as currency, then the sea shells on the earth may have become extinct long ago, and their growth rate and reproduction rate cannot keep up with the wealth growth rate of human society.
Using shells as currency, are the people living by the sea richer than the people living inland? Not necessarily! In the short term, people living around gold and silver mines, "near the water tower first to get the moon", will first get rich, but, over time, the price of gold and silver will eventually be flattened.
Silver coins unearthed in Europe
We take gold mines as an example to illustrate the problem of "price difference", some places on the earth have more gold mines, some places are less, the gold resources in A are very rich, gold is more, the price is cheap, the gold resources in B are very scarce, gold is scarce, the price is high, the merchants have long noticed this phenomenon, so they will transport the gold in A to B for sale, buy at a low price, sell at a high price, and earn the difference. Over time, the demand for gold in land A will continue to grow, and even the production of gold mines will not keep up with the demand, and then the price of gold in place A will also begin to rise. After a large amount of gold in land A was transported to land B, the price of gold in place B also slowly fell, and finally, the price of gold in land A and place B was flat. The same is true of shells, although the sea is rich in shells, but once it becomes currency, a large number of merchants will buy sea shells from here and transport them inland, and finally, the price of shells around the world will be basically flat. The human beings who live on the seashore must have to sell sea shells, otherwise, how can they get the supplies they want? Gold, silver, shells, these things, hungry can not eat, cold can not be worn as clothes, people will be the underground gold, silver mined, the sea shells in the sea, must be exchanged, and mining precious metals, catching sea shells, itself is to pay the cost.
When the shell is not a currency, the status of the shell has also plummeted, more than 4,000 years ago, people like to use the shell as an ornament, in fact, in large part because the shell is a symbol of wealth, there are some imaginary ingredients in it. Nowadays, people like to wear jewelry made of gold and diamonds, in fact, because gold and diamonds are symbols of wealth, and the color and shape of gold and diamonds are, admittedly, beautiful, but this is not the most beautiful color and shape on the earth.
When the shell loses its currency status, people no longer pursue the shell, many beautiful sea shells are even forgotten by modern people, if we do not specialize in the study of shells, we really do not know that there are so many beautiful shells on the earth.