This course is the first in a planned four-course sequence based on Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Together, the sequence follows the long arc of human history from the origins of the universe to the modern scientific age. This course focuses exclusively on Part One of Harari’s book, prehistory from the Big Bang to the threshold of the Agricultural Revolution. The purpose here is to explore the evidence underlying the starting point for Harari’s story of how evolution produced an unremarkable primate – that’s us, homo sapiens – that sort of by accident came to dominate the planet. Throughout the course, particular attention is given to separating well-established evidence from interpretation and informed speculation.