Over the broadest area and longest time in history, the item people used as money was the:

1. Cowries come from the Maldives Islands. 2. They served as money from 700 BC in China. 3. They were impossible to counterfeit. _Source: OpenStax Principles of Macroeconomics for AP Courses 2e, Chapter 13, Money and Banking (CC BY 4.0)._