Money. How common/uncommon was it in historical cultures?

by Soft-Problem

The Gaels never had their own money, even well into the 'Middle Ages'. The Incans, likewise, built a complex civilisation without a role for money.

I suspect a lot of the acephalous and indigenous societies of Africa function/functioned without money too. The Maasai I know go without it by custom. In Tibet before 1650 it's debated.

Did the pre-Columbian North Americans have any money/coins/gold? Australian aborigines had none I presume? Pacific island cultures?

Has anyone done a statistical survey of what cultures have the stuff or don't? I'm asking because I suspect that there's a paradigmatic expectation for societies to have money, and so we go looking for the ancient coins, gold, silver, but I suspect it's absent in many cultures.

voyeur324