How did ancient people first figure out metallurgy? Wouldn’t they have had to know to dig up the metals from deep underground in the first place?

Question

Basically what the title says, how did people first figure out that metal would be useful, how to work it, etc, if metal is buried under the ground and requires a substantial effort to extract?

In: 8

Answer 1

You know how in minecraft sometimes weird blocks like iron are outside? People played around with those metals and realized some were tougher than others when they used fire on them. And they kept playing around and told everyone else what worked and what didnt.