Editing Stone Age (section)

===End of the Stone Age===
Innovation in the technique of [[smelting]] [[ore]] is regarded as the end of the Stone Age and the beginning of the [[Bronze Age]]. The first highly significant metal manufactured was [[bronze]], an alloy of copper and [[tin]] or [[arsenic]], each of which was smelted separately. The transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age was a period during which modern people could smelt copper, but did not yet manufacture bronze, a time known as the [[Copper Age]] (or more technically the [[Chalcolithic]] or Eneolithic, both meaning 'copper–stone'). The Chalcolithic by convention is the initial period of the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age was followed by the [[Iron Age]].

The transition out of the Stone Age occurred between 6000 and 2500&nbsp;[[Common Era|BC]] for much of humanity living in [[North Africa]] and [[Eurasia]].{{citation needed|date=June 2022}}

The first evidence of human [[metallurgy]] dates to between the [[6th millennium BC|6th]] and [[5th millennium BC|5th millennia]]&nbsp;BC in the archaeological sites of the [[Vinča culture]], including [[Majdanpek]], [[Jarmovac]], [[Pločnik (archaeological site)|Pločnik]], [[Rudna Glava]] in modern-day Serbia.<ref>{{cite journal | journal = [[Journal of World Prehistory]] | year = 2021 | issue = 2 | title = Early Balkan Metallurgy: Origins, Evolution and Society, 6200–3700 BC | first1 = Miljana | last1 = Radivojević | first2 = Benjamin W. | last2 = Roberts | volume = 34 | pages = 195–278 | doi = 10.1007/s10963-021-09155-7 | s2cid = 237005605 | doi-access = free }}</ref>

[[Ötzi the Iceman]], a [[mummy]] from about 3300 BC, carried with him a copper axe and a flint knife.

In some regions, such as [[Sub-Saharan Africa]], the Stone Age was followed directly by the Iron Age.<ref>{{cite book|author1=S.J.S. Cookey|editor1-last=Swartz|editor1-first=B.K.|editor2-last=Dumett|editor2-first=Raymond E.|title=West African Culture Dynamics: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives|date=1980|publisher=Mouton de Gruyter|isbn=978-90-279-7920-9|page=329|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8_Z5N0gmNlsC&q=africa+Stone+Age+was+followed+directly+by+the+iron+age&pg=PA329|access-date=3 June 2016|chapter=An Ethnohistorical Reconstruction of Traditional Igbo Society}}</ref> The Middle East and [[Southeast Asia]]n regions progressed past Stone Age technology around 6000&nbsp;BC.{{citation needed|date=January 2016}} Europe, and the rest of Asia became post-Stone Age societies by about 4000&nbsp;BC.{{citation needed|date=January 2016}} The [[Cultural periods of Peru|proto-Inca]] cultures of South America continued at a Stone Age level until around 2000&nbsp;BC, when gold, copper, and silver made their entrance. The peoples of the Americas notably did not develop a widespread behavior of smelting bronze or iron after the Stone Age period, although the technology existed.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Easby|first1=Dudley T.|title=Pre-Hispanic Metallurgy and Metalworking in the New World|journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society|date=April 1965|volume=109|issue=2|pages=89–98}}</ref> Stone tool manufacture continued even after the Stone Age ended in a given area. In Europe and North America, [[millstone]]s were in use until well into the 20th century, and still are in many parts of the world.