Tabletop GamingThe history and cultural significance of board gamesWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. Tabletop GamingThe history and cultural significance of board gamesWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Benjamin Abbott) Play is a fundamental part of life. It’s not just people that play; many animals do too, and most of those play well into adulthood. It’s no great surprise, therefore, that we find evidence of that particular, peculiar practice of structured play that we might now call thebest board gamesalongside the earliest human artifacts. Archeologists have unearthed 11,000-year-old slabs of limestone with parallel roles of pits or holes that they’ve tentatively suggested might be boards for a Mancala-like game. That’s about 6,000 …