• At one point, all human societies relied on stone tool technology. Eventually, some of these cultures started the process of developing agriculture, still with stone tools.
• About 65,000 years ago, humans living in South Africa, deliberately heated a hard, fine-grained, local rock used in stone tool manufacture, so that they could more easily obtain blades from the core material. The heat treatment enabled early humans to produce tougher, harder tools
• Weren't stone tools good enough? Why did man need better tools? The climate, which had been great for agriculture, became drier, and many societies returned to hunter-gatherer lifestyles. With domestication of animals that had occurred, many also resorted to pastoral ranching i.e producing livestock, rather than growing crops. All of this could have brought people into fiercer competition for resources and encouraged experimentation with new materials for more efficient tools.
• Who started using copper? It should be noted that not all societies started this process at the same time, or in the same way. Some never adopted metal at all.
• Use of Copper preceded the use of Bronze. Iron was used after Bronze.
• Must have started around 4500 B.C. How do we know? The oldest copper ornament dates back to around 8700 B.C
• It was found in present-day northern Iraq
• Some cultures and individuals used Copper Age technology after the Copper Age was over
• Copper pipes used to carry water, dating back to around 2700 B.C., were found in one of the Egyptian pyramids

The 1,000-year-long Copper Age is also known as the Chalcolithic Period. ., overlapping with the early Bronze Age. Some cultures and individuals used Copper Age technology after the Copper Age was over. The word Chalcolithic is derived from the Greek words “chalco” (copper) and “lithos”(stone). . and it was found in present-day northern Iraq. There is evidence for copper smelting and recovery through processing of malachite and azurite in different parts of the world dating back to 5000 B.C.. Copper pipes used to carry water, dating back to around 2700 B.C., were found in one of the Egyptian pyramids. The Latin name for copper is Cuprum (Cu). It is believed that it has originated from the island of Cyprus where the Romans used to mine copper from its rich copper mine