The IRON AGE has nothing to do with the discovery of Iron, it is called the IRON AGE because of the relationship of what countries are world powers compared to the prophecies in Daniel and what Nebudchannezer's dream was:
Gold = Babylon
Silver = medio-Persia
Bronze = Greece
Iron = Rome
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.
In archaeology, the Iron Age is the stage in the development of any people where the use of iron implements as tools and weapons is prominent. The adoption of this new material coincided with other changes in past societies often including differing agricultural practices, religious beliefs and artistic styles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age
The Iron Age is named after the period during which Iron became commonly smelted and extensively used. The name has zero to do with Daniel. It became long before Rome became a period probably beginning with the Hittites as a major force in world history.
Sorry - the Iron Age was called such because mankind began using weapons and tools made of iron - which were much harder than the previous weapons and tools made of bronze - from the Bronze Age, which in turn had replaced the earlier Copper Age with it's even softer copper weapons and tools.
None of these names have anything to do with Nebuchannezer's (or anyone else's) dream.