Earliest Cave Paintings feature on Human Universe with Brian Cox

Hand stencils and other cave art, in El Castillo Cave, Spain features in the BBC Two documentary Human Universe, to be broadcast on 4^th November. Some of the art in El Castillo Cave was recently dated by my team, showing it to be the earliest in Europe, dating to at least 40,800 years ago. In the show, Brian Cox suggests the art demonstrates the ability of these early painters to envision not just the past and the present, but also the future. Perhaps some of the art was an attempt to control the future?

A clip from the show can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p029kw6m

The eagle eyed among you might be able to spot me sitting on a rock in the background! I was an expert advisor on the episode