How Did Ancient People Decide the Value of Things Before Money?

Long ago, people didn’t use money, they traded things directly. If you had a cow and wanted bread, you might trade your cow for some bread. This is called bartering. But if someone only had a chicken and no one wanted a chicken, it was hard to find something to trade. So ancient people came up with special items like shells or salt that almost everyone wanted, these became early forms of money.