They weren't. Its just an incredibly hard climb. That primitive technology guy on youtube spent several years trying to climb out of his personal stone age. Ev

They weren't. Its just an incredibly hard climb. That primitive technology guy on youtube spent several years trying to climb out of his personal stone age. Even with actual knowledge and a path forward, the most he got was a few iron prills after hours of hard labour. I could get that much iron out of dirt in a few minutes by running a magnet through it. We've come a long way, and its easy to forget how much our process relies on 6000 years of "ah-ha!" and hard labour.