Despite being "useless", almost all early iron age weapons were iron, not steel nor bronze. They generally knew about steel, but could not control the carbonization well enough to outfit the whole army with it. Steel did not become widespread until the Roman era.

Nope. It wasn’t pure iron. It was lightly carbonized iron.

Also you are talking about Iron Age. Which came after and as a consequence of the Bronze Age.

Pure iron is utterly useless as a weapon. Look it up.