Suggest me two easily digestible books: one about the start of civilization and one about the universe

I'm looking for a book about prehistory, how and why Mesopotamia was established, and a little further into the Bronze Age. I'm fascinated by our primitive beginnings to civilization and would love to learn more about how we humans "got started", so to speak, with some added context. Anything including Otzi would be a plus!

Regarding a book about the universe, I want to learn more about how we know what we know. For example, how did we figure out what a black hole is? What is the limit to how far we can see the cosmos? How did we come up with the Big Bang theory? What are the pillars of creation? How do we know what gases make up the pillars? How exactly is a star born? What happens inside a black hole? An all encompassing book about the cosmos is sort of what I'm looking for, I'm not really sure how else to word it. Are Neil deGrasse Tyson's books any good?

Thanks for any recs!