Come on now, there were lots of cultures up to the twentieth century which did not use money. They bartered for what they need, had gift exchanges, raided and traded between villages. To say that tools were money is silly, for so were furs, skins, meat, shells, pretty stones, cool feathers, animals, women, children, baskets and just about everything people had could be wealth. So a stone tool is wealth but so was everything else, don’t these guys read historical accounts?
Barter is pretty old, but there are no historical accounts about this tools-as-money period, or even about the early days of bartering. One complaint I have about this idea though is best summed up right here:
