Consistent with the name of this site, we have to go through a lot of “then” before we get to “now.” As we recount all the intermediate stages, you will recognize many of the names — at least I did! I will try to hit only the main points (for a while) so we can get a sense of a path from then to now.
Given that, let’s begin with “The Stone Age.” The Stone Age was roughly 3.4 million years long, ending with the Bronze Age in ~2000 – 4000 BCE, with — you guessed it! — the widespread use of bronze. Technically, there was some metal-working during the Stone Age, but it was limited to banging gold and copper into shape. It was once copper could be smelted that the stone age ended and the Bronze Age began. And actually, upon digging further this “Three-Age System” is really a relic of the 19th century, and it’s primarily only useful in parts of modern Europe and the Middle East. In fact, it’s generally not even considered a three-age system anymore because copper often gets its own age as well. What a cluster.
The Stone Age comprises roughly 99% of human history, which makes sense, because when you have only stone as a “tool,” essentially everything takes longer. Moreover, there is no consensus regarding language itself. The Wikipedia page, “Origin of language,” I hasten to add, is fascinating. Over the years, there have been very interesting theories, but nobody even knows how long humans have had language. It’s quite likely that for at least a portion of the Stone Age, humans lacked words, which definitely made everything take longer.
I once heard about a theory that humans became less like monkeys after inadvertently ingesting psilocybin or peyote or something. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I think humans are at least part space alien, but I find reading about the lineage of humans absolutely fascinating, and I am open to other possibilities, as well.
In any event, we had a whole lot of stone age. Actually, if we want to be more accurate, we have a lot of Pleistocene epoch aka Ice Age. In fact, by being more accurate with the taxonomy, we wind up with more Pleistocene — the epoch was from 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago. During this time, humans developed language (135,000 – 500,000 years ago) and agriculture (12,000 years ago). From there, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to ancient Greece!