I ask because I was just reading an article about copper tools that made note that the Chalcolithic/Æneolithic Age she used to be considered a separate epoch in its own right spanning the period between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, but it's now considered to be the final part of the Neolithic Age, with the end of the Neolithic coinciding with the beginning of the Bronze Age. This doesn't make sense to me, as I'd imagine that the discovery of extractive metallurgy and transition to tools made out of metal as opposed to those made of stone would represent a larger societal change than the discovery that alloying copper with tin creates stronger metal tools than those that had been in use for over 1000 years. I suppose that the societal impact of the copper to bronze transition could've been a result of the fact that in order to get the tin to make Bronze had to come as a result of international trade, as there is no tin in the ground in the Fertile Crescent, but did that tin move from Western and Central Europe to Greece, the Levant, Mesopotamia and Egypt on new trade routes that were established to move tin, or existing trade routes that simply became vehicles for it?
As this is a question about prehistory, it may also be worth trying r/AskAnthropology
doesn't make sense to me, as I'd imagine that the discovery of extractive metallurgy and transition to tools made out of metal as opposed to those made of stone would represent a larger societal change than the discovery that alloying copper with tin creates stronger metal tools than those that had been in use for over 1000 years.
Well first off you have to understand the "ages" catigorization is rough as hell. Its really only a thing to talk about pretty field specific time periods (most people outside research of the chalcolithic age really don't even know what it refers to). But mostly people use those sorts of destinctions to talk about periods of technological change, so you have to ask the question of how widespread the metallurgical advances were. Remember Copper use was never really widespread in tool use since copper tended to be worse at most jobs than stone tools was until bronze tools were invented, and the spread of that was fairly slow.
but did that tin move from Western and Central Europe to Greece, the Levant, Mesopotamia and Egypt on new trade routes that were established to move tin, or existing trade routes that simply became vehicles for it?
Pretty hard to give solid answers on that. Ancient trade routes are incredibly hard to track, especially before you had the sort of industrialized mining you see in the iron age (most ore was simply found on the surface or in lakes not mined). But most likely it was moved along established trade routes since the people with the money to buy were known to exist on the other side. Creating new trade routes was a risky venture.