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The Stone Age persisted for roughly 3.4 million years, but it took barely a couple of thousand years to 'find' Iron.
Good point, but as a counterpoint: metallurgy ‘developed’ on seemingly isolated parts of the globe (at around the same time). It’s an entirely plausible coincidence, but a hefty one, that Native American tribes created the first copper tools ever at around the same time that Middle Eastern tribes did, and no one had ever done something similar before.
Leshaches
Oliver Schick
There's a barely conceivable disconnect between learning how to chip away at a suitable pebble, (a flint), to make a variety of of useful tools, to 'burning' another pebble/bunch of rocks to liberate the metal within, and then when you get annoyed at how soft Copper is, to find another metal, (Tin), to make Bronze.
The Stone Age persisted for roughly 3.4 million years, but it took barely a couple of thousand years to 'find' Iron.
Flints were sufficiently available that an alternative was not considered for most of human history.