I was thinking in terms of "bronze doesn't become a big thing," since tin's a surprisingly scarce metal. Copper seems to be hard not to develop, considering the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest had it (they used it to make art objects of immense value). As agisXIV says, perhaps iron working is discovered earlier in the history of Abyssinia, and the knowledge spreads by way of the Berbers to the Mediterranean. Now, bronze is still going to be discovered, and used; even today brass and bronze are superior to iron or steel for certain purposes, but iron is more abundant and much more amenable to forging. Bronze is great stuff for casting things.
Does your PoD exclude brass? All it takes is one curious person to mix zinc or tin with copper. Once it's discovered that an alloy of copper is better than copper itself, there will be a strong incentive to experiment with other alloys. Vast trade networks will spark the curiosity of those who are thousands of miles away from the ore. All it takes is one person to melt the zinc from the bronze to make copper and voila a light bulb goes off. Anyone curious enough or accident prone enough to melt zinc from copper will be inclined to see if other metals can be combined with copper. Especially when copper is more abundant than brass obtained by distant trade networks. Suppose this curious or clumsy person lived near tin deposits. They would be likely to desire to see what happens if they put this rare ore in fire or melted copper.
Here's a video that shows zinc being separated from copper:
Other metals obtained through trade networks are gold and silver. Since lead is common and has a low melting point, it has likely been melted as well, perhaps with deleterious results. Nevertheless, melting lead could inspire curiosity as long as it's not indirectly ingested. Once someone has a taste (hopefully not literally, in the case of lead) of metallurgy, they will likely want more. There's something innately human that's attracted to changing the chemical nature of objects with fire.
Therefore, I would think that a PoD which has the iron age predate the bronze age, would also need iron to predate brass. Not sure if silver and gold would need to be skipped as well. Lead isn't as important, but due to it's abundance and far lower melting point than iron, it's inevitable that someone would have melted lead before iron. For obvious reasons though, smelting lead may have done civilization more harm than good. In fact, lead could be the sole reason why metallurgy wasn't mainstream right after fire was discovered. A case of curiosity killed the cat, or at least caused sterility and brain damage. Curiosity over mercury may have held back humanity in the same way as well. Similarly, creating flint pottery is highly toxic. The British had to find out the hard way in the late 18th century when they forged classical sculptures. There may have very well been abundant flint pottery hundreds of thousands of years ago if it hadn't been toxic to breath in. This most important stone for hunting likely was used by curious humans for other persons, with fatal results. Chronic exposure to flint dust, would have impaired humans from being curious about applications of other less utilized materials. Not so much at an individual level, but at a societal level, lead, mercury, and flint would have would have deterred humans from using other materials for abstract purposes.