Why is the human brain so large and complex? The brain’s wrinkled folding does not easily reveal its secrets, but it carries its development in its anatomy and little of it involved adaptations to the modern world. In the light of evolution, what was put together and when? Large brains are metabolically costly, so its subcortical and neocortical enhancements must reflect formidable challenges in past habitats. What, then, were the challenges that selection had to overcome? What pressures created a rare self- identity, and a social mind with a cooperative intelligence that makes large-scale societies filled with millions of strangers possible? The evolutionary record tells us that the human brain was configured in a variegated mosaic pattern by a series of far-reaching evolutionary novelties. Hence, notions that the human brain is a “gift of the gods,” a result of large mutations, or that “human nature” is a product of mental molecules or mechanisms that evolved during the Pleistocene are misplaced. In reality, as this essay will document, our brain and its inherent proclivities are the outcome of over 65 million years of primate evolution.