Long story short, I like this starting as a concept but wish it could last longer. Also, it needs some serious balance to prevent possible mass of population and outposts before hitting next era.

Now, onto (longer) specific details...

I enjoyed playing this style of starting point which was refreshing from civ games. Being able to respawn tribal unit after losing your last one is a good idea too to prevent early gameover. Spawning many points of interest (even in areas we already explored) was a great idea too. It encourages players to explore more before settling down while also not losing out on science/research since such rss can be accumulated and stored before choosing next era cultures to progress.

Having said that, this period could end up being very short lived due to low requirement for hitting next era. This is not to mention how some players could take advantage of this period to amass large number of tribesmen and claim a lot of land/territories. In other words, abusing the system to get a big head start. I did trying this out myself by dragging Neolithic gameplay long and ended up with something like 7-10 tribal units and 5-8 outposts/lands (as I recall but could be more than that) before I decided to stop and hit next era. This really needs some tweaks for balance to make it harder for players to get that point. In fact, this case is very similar to how one can amass huge armies like Huns and Mongols.

Back to issue of this period being short lived, I understand that devs probably want to cater players who want to settle down quickly rather than exploring. That said, I know some players want to play out more in this era too before settling down. (Myself included) The requirement of Fame Stars needed for next era were just 2 out of 3 goals. Personally, I think devs could extend these and make some fine adjustments allowing people to play more. As a number of people pointed out, the game pace was fast, and this could be one of the very reasons.

Yes, we do not need to hit next era if we do not want to. However, the fact that the milestone for those goals can be met easily causes players to feel game pace being fast.

Suggestion for Possible Changes

1. Introduce some sort of scaling of food requirement for creating next tribesmen units. (Not using the constant of just 20 food for 1. Maybe a constant increase by 5 for each next one? So 20 for 1st, 25 for 2nd, 30 for 3rd, etc.)
2. Reduce amount of influence obtained from hunting and exploring points of interest at least by half. (To stop people from accumulating a lot of influence and lay claim to many lands which leads to more passive influence generation.) If not, consider doubling amount of influence needed to create outposts just for Neolithic era instead.
3. It is also possible to increase even more scaling of influence needed for creating outposts too, but please do try out reducing influence in point 2 first as a start.
4. Double amount of Fame Stars from 1 in each of 3 Goals to 2 thus making it a total of 6 Stars/Milestones. As for requirement to hit next era, maybe make it 4 out of 6 stars too which is also double based on Lucy build.