For example most regions had a rural/ agrarian economy and could have used cattle horns. It would have represented their amount of cattle they had and therefore their actual wealth.
I think there is a small group of people in africa doing something like that with fish right now.
So why settle for metal coins?
In: Economics
Because metals are durable, they can be melted to be divided into smaller portions, but you need an infrastructure to melt metals into properly engraved coins so the local authority can control the supply (prevents counterfeit).
Gold/silver do not rust so it was thought their values would remain unchanged through time.
Horns aren’t always the same size, so it’s annoying to make sub-units (how do you sell for a tenth of a horn when all horns are of different sizes ?). They’re also cumbersome. You can’t increase or decrease the value of horns by changing their composition like you would with coins so it’s not very practical for making economic policies.
While it’s not impossible that people used horns as currency, it’s simply impractical compared to metal coins. For both the daily consumers and the authorities.
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