> In the not too distant past, you didn't need money to live.
Are you calling prehistory the not too distance past? From what I can tell from history most useful land was owned by someone. How it was owned varied, from tribes that kept other tribes off their land (no personal ownership), villages that kept protected the local's land, "lords" that had control of various amounts of lands.
Sometimes there were plagues and so for a short time you could find land that nobody controlled, but that didn't last long if the land was useful. It might be enough for you to establish yourself on that land, but it wasn't a constant thing.
Are you calling prehistory the not too distance past? From what I can tell from history most useful land was owned by someone. How it was owned varied, from tribes that kept other tribes off their land (no personal ownership), villages that kept protected the local's land, "lords" that had control of various amounts of lands.
Sometimes there were plagues and so for a short time you could find land that nobody controlled, but that didn't last long if the land was useful. It might be enough for you to establish yourself on that land, but it wasn't a constant thing.