Are the children also born with perfect knowledge, allowing them to skip school entirely?

Have you seen this question? I asked about a similar concept but smaller starting population etc. You can still get some valid ideas on the time from the answers!

@SZCZERZOKŁY This is better as an answer. Still, how would they get iron and the like out of the ground? It isn't like everything is easily available in one place. Plants didn't give the plentiful that you might think and how would they get fertilizers? Isn't that a more complicated process?

The definition "in a lifetime" is problematic, since our current lifespan benefits strongly from modern medicine, sturdy shelters and the non-scracity of food. I'd suggest you either assume max. 50 years, or use a fixed time, like a century.

Since these folks are described as single-minded about technology (not sex), the birth rate seems likely to be low, and housing/food quality seems likely to be rather poor. Seems like one million will start to shrink as lack of modern health care, poor diet, and ordinary accidents promptly increase the death rate.

Do they start with domesticated crops? or do they have to domesticate things, because undomesticated crops are orders of magnitude less productive.

They've essentially moved into a brand new Minecraft world, and now have to pound on trees with their bare hands until they can fashion wooden implements, right?

I don't think I'll post a full answer (and in general I agree with Ash's one), but I wanted to mention two things. 1st, I'd recommend Jule Verne's Mysterious Island for an inspiration. From nothing to nitroglycerine, electric telegraph and a sea-worthy ship sort of story. 2nd, a lot of people (and answers) focus on crops, but for such a small population spread over an area of a country, animal husbandry would provide enough food, even with non-domesticated species.

@Alice 1) Mysterious Island's group had enough civilized resources that I consider it a "cheat". 2) Animal husbandry without domesticated animals would be tough. Consider that they won't even have dogs, to start with.

@SZCZERZOKŁY They would bother with bronze because it’s much easier to produce than iron, and very nearly as good, as long as they can find copper and tin. Iron replaced bronze largely because tin became inaccessible rather than because it was inherently better.

I was in dissent in the other discussion, since I believe it underestimated human capabilities. However I'd note OP's stipulation that the population had knowledge but not practice, and based on that would suggest that attempting stone age technology would be unwise since knapping flints takes an enormous amount of skill: far better to focus on finding appropriate ores and casting bronze or brass which would allow them to move comparatively quickly to iron which needs to be forged.

Unless the entire million were prepared for this, I think that we'd go back to hunter-gatherer status after about 90% of the people died. Though, I'm saying this as a privileged citizen of the US who doesn't know how to farm at all.

Relevant reading: How to Invent Everything by Ryan North.

If you want a technological answer, you need to land them with a food solution, and they need a detailed geological map of their planet (and land at a good spot), because otherwise it'll be sheer luck and probably take millenia to even reach Roman technology levels.

How do you make this distinction between knowledge and skill? Taking an example from the answers; you do not know how to make fire with a bow drill until you have done so successfully, preferably many times in different circumstances. You may know that such a thing is possible, but that's not the same as knowing how to do it. It is a skill that requires only basic motor skills, and is helped by some muscle memory. But much more important is knowing which wood to use, which shape to cut notches, how long and tight to make the bow, how fast to go and how to then use the embers.

Whenever I see these questions I can’t help but think of Factorio speedruns.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Island

I think Karl nailed it. The initial stabilization is way too random with having to deal with starvation, and many answers revolve around the question of how much cannibalism is needed. Give them 1 month worth of rations when dropping them, so they at least have some time to test food sources to differentiate edible and poisonous stuff, and get their body accustomed.

Won't starting with all there is to know about - anything - make it so easy to gain motor skills, etc, that your million people include experts in anything basic after a few months? Won't knowing everything they need to do, and why and how, help them at least double their progress every year or so, even starting from the Stone Age? Doesn't that leave them like the guy claiming twice the grains of rice for every square on the board? Anything like 2^85 is vastly more skill or knowledge than we can conceive. They'd need to feed themselves from day one, but you assumed that, didn't you?