<p>This article considers archaeological contributions to the study of money over the past fifteen years and how they inform our understanding of money’s definition, origins, and development. As the study of the material, rather than historical record, these archaeological discoveries are uniquely positioned to shed light on economic activity in ancient societies that was not explicitly recorded by scribes and artists. In this article, we argue that money must be defined broadly to encompass a variety of behaviors that people use to quantify value, that the processes by which value came to be quantified through money were highly variable over time and space, and that these processes usually involved complex negotiations between different social groups. We review recent archaeological discoveries from Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas, demonstrating how these studies contribute to this broad and variable understanding of money in the past.</p>