Money before coinage. History of pre-columbian currency

Abstract

It’s well known that Carl Menger, one the most remarkable con-tributors on economic theory, and father of the Austrian School of Economics, devoted a great part of his career to research money origins. According to his studies, money, just as language and eco-nomics came from a spontaneous order, otherwise known as a creation of human interaction, yet not of human design. This means that money didn’t originate from a decree, neither was an invention of a king or governor, but it comes from the regular com-munication between individuals, to satisfy a need.

Needless to be said, the necessity of exchange has continuously been present on mankind; facilitating the satisfaction of the infinite human desires. Yet coinage was not present in humanity until the VI^th century B.C. in Europe and XV^th century A.C. in America¹ when Spaniards arrived. Then how could civilizations without a well-developed coinage system progress? The purpose of this paper is to prove and show how the Mayan monetary system could work with-out a coinage system, and how efficient this civilization was solving problems commonly found in barter and commodity money, which were their leading means in commerce.