Actually as David Graeber points out in this talk about his book "Debt: The First 5,000 Years" money most likely originated with rulers using minted coins to pay soldiers since that was easier than paying in chickens or whatever. The book itself goes into much more detail on the origin of money, so I'll talk a little about that as well.

Basically, many heads of state would need the coins to pay the soldiers, so they'd mint coins, require everyone to pay taxes with them so there'd also be goods and services created alongside to feed and clothe troops with. That's the basic origin of market economies as well, actually. The standard narrative of barter->money->credit etc is actually backwards, according to Graeber. In reality the close knit communities before the widespread existence of states didn't need money or even barter, and would just give things away and then expect things in return.

As to when humans started using currency, it really depends. If you mean fiat currency, then there are traces of it from China around 1,000 CE. Money in general, however, has existed wherever governments have sprung up.