Money Is A Made-Up Thing

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About this episode

Money only works because we all agree to believe in it. It's not backed by gold, or by anything you can hold, but by trust. And that trust had to start somewhere. In this first episode, Mary-Ann Ochota takes us back roughly two thousand years, to a Roman trading site buried beneath a working farm in Yorkshire. Guided by archaeologist Dr Brendon Wilkins, who's spent the last decade excavating the site, she pieces together what life looked like for the traders who passed through, haggling over pottery and silver coins, deciding in the moment whether to trust a stranger. It's a question that's been with us ever since. How do two people who've never met agree on what something is worth, and how…