TIL: Contrary to popular conception, non-monetary societies did not mainly rely on barter as a means of trade, but relied on gift economics and sometimes debt.
Contrary to popular conception, there is no evidence that societies relied only on barter before using money for trade.[73] Instead, non-monetary societies operated primarily along the principles of gift economics, and in more complex economies, on debt.[74][75][76] When barter occurred, it was usually between strangers or would-be enemies.[77]
If you want to learn a lot more about how economies worked in the past, I highly recommend the book "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" by David Graeber, author of "Bullshit Jobs." It goes into this topic, and then presents a very detailed world history of economic systems from the perspective of an anthropologist.
Thanks for the recommendation! I had a reminiscent Reddit reflex, where I looked the writer up to see if it wasn't a 'guns, germs and steel' type of popular history, but was pleasantly surprised.
If you want to dive even further into why the foundations of modern macroeconomics are bunk, then I can also recommend reading Debunking Economics by Steve Keen.