Granted Iron has existed long before the Babalonians and definitely as far back as when "Lucy" (Not Desi's Lucy) first walked upright, mainly in meteorites. thought the found percentages is low (~18 %).
Truly, the Iron age is the era when man broke the code to manufacture iron from the raw materials of the Earth. You can't tell me that if the technology existed thousands of years before that no one would have used it for purposes other than creating rivits.
After all, tools, weapons, farm implements, nails, all kinds of applications, everything you can imagine and use today could have been done centuries prior.
Bump for later read
"and definitely as far back as when "Lucy" (Not Desi's Lucy) first walked upright, mainly in meteorites. "
I've never heard of this "Lucy walking upright in meteorites" theory. I think you are referring to the Beatles song - "Lucy in the sky with diamonds".
ampu
Yep, each age is named for the materials which came into wide use for tools, utensils and weapons.
According to Wilkpedia (for what it's worth):
The first signs of iron use come from Ancient Egypt and Sumer, where around 4000 BC small items, such as the tips of spears and ornaments, were being fashioned from iron recovered from meteorites (see Iron: History). By 3000 BC to 2000 BC increasing numbers of smelted iron objects (distinguishable from meteoric iron by the lack of nickel in the product) appear in Anatolia, Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley (Pakistan and North India). However, their use appears to be ceremonial, and iron was an expensive metal, more expensive than gold. Some sources suggest that iron was being created then as a by-product of copper refining, as sponge iron, and was not reproducible by the metallurgy of the time. The earliest systematic production and use of iron implements appears from the 14th century BC in the Hittite Empire though recent excavations in Middle Ganga Valley in India done by archaelogist Rakesh Tewari show iron-working in India since 1800 BC. By 1200 BC, iron was widely used in the Middle East but did not supplant the dominant use of bronze for some time.