To reiterate, the BBC's production 'HUMAN UNIVERSE' with Brian Cox is well worth watching. 

The title of the latest episode 'What is our Future?' is clearly imbued with temporal subtext. So without being a spoiler, his concept of time begins with the prehistoric painted stencil of a girl's hand in the depths of a cave in Spain.

Brian Cox believes that our prehistoric ancestors, like the ones 150,000 years ago at the cave of El Castillo in Cantabrian Spain, had stopped just 'surviving' the world, they were now 'contemplating' it. Contemplation found an outlet through art. Art was able to express many concepts, one of which was time, and the hand stencil was just that; 'This is me, now!'

This understanding of time - this collective self-realisation - marks the dawn of an unprecedented phenomenon, where by our civilization has the power to shape the future of the whole planet.....which takes us back to the programme.

For those of us engaged in rock art - even though it should be a universal obligation - it's always good to see that prehistoric paintings and engravings are attributed with a purpose and an importance that justifies and fuels their research and preservation. Catch it on iPlayer.

BBC Human Universe:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0276p50