The staggering thing about prehistory is its sheer enormity. Before metallurgy, domestication, and agriculture came along to mark the Neolithic, the Paleolithic spanned two and a half million years, during which archaic humans and anatomically modern humans developed stone tools, fire, cooking, and clothing. Also interbreeding between archaic and modern species, but it’s possible that’s beyond the scope of a board game review.

Speaking of which, Peter Rustemeyer’s Paleo is the product of some significant DNA mixing of its own. With dashes of Friedemann Friese’s Friday, Joanna Kijanka and Ignacy Trzewiczek’s Robinson Crusoe, and Peer Sylvester’s The Lost Expedition, Rustemeyer’s version of prehistory is filled with resources to hunter-gather, perils to survive and, above all, things to learn.

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