Technology shapes societies.
“The difficulty involved in mining and transporting tin is one reason that access to bronze weaponry remained concentrated in military and elite institutions. The average citizen still largely relied on tools made of copper, stone, bone, or wood. But just a few centuries after Kadesh, ordinary Hittite and Egyptian farmers had access to a new material: iron.
Because iron could be produced locally, imperial centers no longer had such a strong advantage over their subject peoples. The invention of iron weaponry meant the political equilibrium was forever changed.”
https://www.worksinprogress.news/p/why-really-caused-the-bronze-age