TALLY STICKS AND THE ORIGIN OF MONEY

 

When we picture the history of money, many imagine barter leading naturally to coins, then paper bills, then cards and digital balances. But new research led by University at Albany Anthropology Professor Robert M. Rosenswig shows that this familiar narrative doesn't hold up—and that lessons from ancient wooden and bone tally sticks matter for how we understand money today.

His conclusion: Orthodox economics, which treats money primarily as a medium of exchange, does not fit the evidence. Tally sticks, he argues, suggest that money originates with governments as a system of accounting and taxation.

Rosenswig's study, "Ancient Tally Sticks Explain the Nature of Modern Government Money," published in the Journal of Economic Issues, shows that tally sticks—independently invented in England, China and the Maya world—were consistently used by state officials to record and cancel tax or tribute obligations.

"The historical record shows that barter doesn't precede the creation of financial money," Rosenswig said. "Tally sticks remind us that money is not a scarce commodity but an accounting system rooted in political authority."

"Anthropologists have long demonstrated that barter was never a pre-monetary system," said Rosenswig. "Instead, barter appeared only in societies with existing monetary systems when formal currency was scarce or between strangers for one-off exchanges—not as the foundation of whole economies."

Tally sticks, he argues, show how states mobilizing resources through accounting systems backed by taxation, fitting into a broader pattern where different forms of money arose to meet different needs, from wampum beads in the Americas to Roman coins in Britain.

"What ties these cases together was not barter, but political authority to enforce obligations through accounting," said Rosenswig.

The current study compares how tally sticks were used across three very different civilizations.

To read the complete article, see:
Ancient tally sticks across three civilizations challenge myths about money (https://phys.org/news/2025-09-ancient-tally-civilizations-myths-money.html)

To read earlier E-Sylum articles, see:
FEATURED WEB SITE (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v03n29a13.html)
MEDIEVAL TALLY STICKS AND HOW THEY WORKED (https://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n29a26.html)
TALLY STICKS FOR MONEY (https://www.coinbooks.org/v27/esylum_v27n34a19.html)

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