About 2.5 million years ago, a genus called Homo emerged in East Africa. Over the following millennia, multiple human species spread across the globe — Homo neanderthalensis in Europe, Homo erectus in Asia, and others. For most of prehistory, humans were unremarkable mid-level predators, not the dominant force they would become.

Harari emphasizes that Homo sapiens is just one branch of this family tree. We coexisted — and often competed — with other human species for hundreds of thousands of years. The idea that we were always destined for dominance is a myth. What changed everything was a sudden leap in mental capability.

By around 70,000 years ago, Sapiens began behaving in dramatically new ways: crafting complex tools, creating art, burying the dead with ceremony. Something had shifted inside our minds, and it would alter the course of life on Earth.