Seems decently researched but I don’t know why the author felt compelled to add unsubstantiated and totally unnecessary hyperbole about humans only having succeeded because of imitating the whole shebang. It doesn’t even make sense!
In earlier days, we understood very little of the technology we had, even on the highest expert level. A chimpanzee that does not imitate but only watches to pick up the elements it understands would never be able to become bronze age, no matter the abundance of ore and fuel. The human on the other hand apparently has the ability to trust the unknown and try.