Saw this video about gold, it’s chemical structure and malleability. I still don’t understand why gold is worth anything at all……
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Speaking about Western Europe, shiny non-useful metals started to be a thing around the Neolithic, when we first started farming.
(Not since before language, it’s quite modern).
They demonstrated you were set up and stable enough to be able to spend time and energy on stuff that had no survival value.
ie. it’s a status symbol.
All previously known metals tarnished so gold was thought to be special and became associated with the priest class especially.
It’s the beginning of class distinction and of ‘money’ exchange instead of collaboration and barter.
All this is still basically the case.
These days gold also has intrinsic value for use in electronics.
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