There's probably way more to it than this (I've only read Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years) but apparently the emergence of money served the function of precisifying debt and credit across periods of time that track both cultural and material exchanges, rather than symbolizing goods exchanges proper. Similar to what Robotctrl is saying above, Graeber argues that institutional religions emerged as post-hoc justification for debtor and creditor practices, with unjust outcomes then being used as evidence for the providence of God. Again, haven't looked into the veracity of Graeber's account yet, but it tells an interesting tale and adds a bit of nuance to the idea that human history is the history of class struggle, where class gets cashed out in ancient times along creditor/debtor lines.