The origins of money

[Flackle]

I'm looking for a nice, heated economic/philosophical debate on what is money. Where does it come from? Is money determined by the market, or can only the government create currency? Is money separate from commodities, or is it one of them? What is the best form of currency? I'd like to see people put some research into it, and not base their beliefs solely on what someone else said.

[Falconer02]

Just for reference purposes-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money

I may add to this later.

[cmsjr31]

  at my age and having worked in an bank let's go bank to the Greeks and Romans is it easier to use cash plastic money
  rather then trading food or little pouches of gold or silver but remember money is the root of all evil if you don't belive this
 wait till someone gets sick or dies in your family GOD BLESS THE USA AND REMEMBER 911

[sarabtrayior]

Bartering was used originally, however, it didn't work out so somebody used shells and it went on and on until the mess that we have now...

[yosav]

money is a from of trading, it used to be you trade for something you want, and the other person wanted what you had, but then they came up with money that could be used for anything, so it made trading easy