“[...] the deliberate fusing of metal with metal to make compounds more suite to his needs. The discovery is at least five thousand years old, for bronze if found in Cretan remains of 3000BC, in Egyptian remains of 2800BC, and in the second city of Troy 2000BC. We can no longer speak strictly of an "Age of Bronze," for the metal came to different peoples at diverse epochs, and the term would therefore be without chronological meaning; furthermore, some cultures -- like those of Finland, northern Russia, Polynesia, central Africa, southern India, North America, and Japan -- passed over the Bronze Age directly from stone to iron; and in those cultures where bronze appears it seems to have had a subordinate place as a luxury of priests, aristocrats and kings, while commoners had still to be content with stone. Even the terms "Old Stone Age" and "New Stone Age" are precariously relative, and describe conditions rather than times; to this day many primitive peoples (e.g., the Eskimos and the Polynesian Islanders) remain in the Age of Stone, knowing iron only as a delicacy brought to them by explorers. [...]"
Will Durant, Story of Civilization, Vol.1: Our Oriental Heritage, Ch.6, Section III, Section 1, 1935 (italics added)
THOUGHT: Knowledge comes to people at different times. The idea of time moving toward progress for all is a myth. It is also true at the individual level -- different persons learn life lessons and lessons from history at different times in their lives, and some never learn a particular lesson throughout their lives.
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