Money's origin - anti Menger's theory

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Even though Menger's theory(that money evolved from barter exchange naturally) has been discredited by historical evidence that contradicts it, it still keeps enduring appeal to economists, because the theory seems elegant and simple, and seems quite intuitive for noneconomists as well.
Economists have tended to ignore historical reality, to establish formal mathematical models of how private agents (with no government), transacting among themselves, might jointly adopt an equilibrium in which they all settle on a common monetary instrument...
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The Social Life of Money,  Page 21, Chapteer 1: Origin

Reading different schools, different opinions on the same question, what does money come from, makes me wonder how are we supposed to figure out what on earth is the truth, after all it all goes back thousands of years ago. We either process it in our head, to imagine what happened back in the time when money first appeared, or try to find tangible historical evidence to suggest an answer if not directly answering it. If it's the first option, how can we be sure that our rationality make the best assumption about the past? Can we trust our ability to make sense of historical events? Can we say for sure one event happened exactly like we thought, like how it would happen today? On the other hand, the latter one isn't much more reliable even though it sounds so. The evolution of money, the birth of money should be a gradual process, is it possible to find the exact evidence shows when and how money is born? Like some ancient notes, saying that since some day, the chief of the tribe mandated all members start using a certain currency in market? Even so, how can we make sure that this tribe was the first one and how do we find out where they got that idea, we couldn't know if some unofficial money already existed before the mandate order.
All seems just arguing for nothing. However, studying the origin of money provides a different perspective regarding to money we use today.