>most important things in their lives were the same as they are now and have always been - water, food, shelter, procreation<
Important, yes, but not the <i>only</i> most important things in their lives. The time scale here is important. The people who created rock art were not some lost branch of homo sapiens sheltering in caves and living in fear of sabre-toothed tigers prowling around outside. They were people with a language and a culture that would have included stories, religion, magic, music and some kind of social structure (even if the people themselves lived in small mobile groups); and any of those things could have been the inspiration for their rock art.
I feel I'm talking too much in the abstract here when I know zilch about rock art. Will go and buy the Prehistoric Rock Art of North Yorkshire book that fitzcoraldo mentioned in an earlier thread and then try and actually get to see some of these things! :-)
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