Timeline Showcasing the Remarkable History of How We Pay

Before we used banks, barcodes, or Bitcoin, humans still developed sophisticated point-of-sale systems to exchange something of value with a stranger. We’ve reinvented solutions time and again over human history, and the team at Qualtrics created a timeline that shows us the story of this history is a lot more dramatic than your tap-to-pay transaction suggests.

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Trading between humans began with the exchange of goods rather than coins or paper. Livestock, pelts, and food were the stuff of life, the most valuable items we could possess. There was no central authority to set prices and values for these things, so trades were negotiated on a case-by-case basis. The first move toward abstraction came with the exchange of goods for cowry shells and tally sticks. An interesting fact: cowry shells have been found across continents, even among civilizations that never met each other.

A major currency turning point in the ancient world was Mesopotamia’s clay tokens, used to exchange for grain and to pay off debts. Ancient Egyptians expanded on this with labor tokens that existed in a tiered system as an early form of payroll. The Code of Hammurabi, from 1750 BC, established complex rules governing credit, debt, and contracts. Economic regulation is a lot older than many people may assume.

When the Silk Road opened in 138 BC, goods, currencies, and ideas traveled thousands of miles. Muslim merchants created sakk, a document that ordered banks to pay a third party, so they didn’t have to travel with heavy coins. The sakk is the direct ancestor of a check. The Song Dynasty of China created a system of paper receipts called jiaozi, which became the world’s first paper currency.

During the Industrial Revolution, James Ritty created the mechanical cash register to help secure coins and bills from untrustworthy cashiers pocketing spare change. He called the machine, “the Incorruptible Cashier.” The Diners Club card, introduced in 1950 by American Express, became the first plastic credit card. A pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum became the first product with a barcode scanned at the checkout in 1974.

The digital age brought about the most dramatic and rapid development. In 2009, Square turned smartphones into point-of-sale registers. This dramatically lowered barriers to entry for small businesses everywhere that could process QR codes and contactless payment methods to sell goods and services. The newest advances are in the realm of biometrics. Michigan businesses started using payments triggered by eye recognition in 2023.

From clay tokens to retinal scans, we’ve come a long way in economic innovation. These advances and technologies tell the story of humans creating solutions to the problem of developing enough trust to trade with strangers. The timeline also shows us how commerce is so tightly woven into human history and development. Some may say it’s the keystone, the foundation of human civilization. This piece is an entertaining and informative visual tale of the development of money, sales, and trade.