This course will focus on 1) the basic principles and mechanisms of biological evolution; 2) human evolution as conceptualized within the context of paleoanthropology. Important topics are: 1) the historical development of evolutionary theory; 2) population genetics; 3) phenotypic variation; 4) speciation; 5) and macroevolution. These theoretical notions, and others, will be discussed in the context of a thorough analysis of human evolution with a special emphasis on paleoanthropology.