Debt - the origin of money

I've been reading a lot of economics and economics history over the last couple of years, and I finally feel like I'm coming round to a place where I can answer what for me is a foundational question:

Where does money come from?

I was quite happy with the 'barter economy' argument. At first, we were faced with the inconvenience of having to work out a suitable exchange rate, my corn for your steak, hope that i need what you have and vice-versa. To make the system more efficient, we would use primitive currency to denote the values and that takes us from a barter economy to a money economy.

However, I am coming round to the view now that money originates from debt. That there is no evidence that barter existed in significant proportions in prehistoric times, let alone was the origin of money. That the imagined direction of travel of 'barter -> money -> debt' needs turning on its head and its in fact 'debt -> money -> barter'. The idea is that sometimes trade between rival societies might not have been able to operate on a level of credits and debts and trust, but friendly societies would have engaged in debts before they used money, and within societies there would have been no need for money at all as everyone trusted everyone else sufficiently, both with their lives and to pull their weight and not take more than their fair share.