system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why did the bronze age come first?

I have a cursory knowledge of history at best and very little of forging metals. 

Why was it easier for humans to make an alloy like bronze before just refining iron?
gpt
Bronze preceded iron as a widely worked metal due to the fact that the metals which make bronze are easily recovered from their ores, and the resulting alloy is soft enough to be easily worked with the raw materials which were then available. 

Copper is probably the reason why the Bronze Age came first. Copper is the perfect gateway from stone tools to metallic tools for primitive societies because: 

Copper exists in nature in relatively pure form, and it's common enough that it certainly would have been found in many places. Also pure copper is a striking attractive red-gold mineral.

Copper can be melted at wood burning temperatures, so it can be 
easily cast

Copper can be beaten into shapes with minimal or no heating

Copper tools are superior to stone tools for many types of uses.

The biggest problem with copper is it's soft and doesn't work well for tools that need a sharp edge: Axes, hatchets, knives, swords.


Iron is a common element in the earth's crust, but it almost always occurs as a compound, it is very rarely to find it naturally as metallic iron. Occasionally an iron meteorite will fall from space, to provide a 'magical' source of the metal. Such rare occurrences allowed a few smiths to discover the valuable properties of iron.