The artwork is excellent, but to my mind the commentary is slanted a little bit wrongly, what I am going to say may seem a little bit nit picking, but to understand the art if we start from a wrong premise it is hard to get to the right conclusion.
The video starts by talking about the lionman figure, and they separate this from the bird because the bird is a mere expression of an animal where as the lionman is a combination and as such is a work of imagination.
I have a problem with that because as an artist I know, that when I draw a thing I am mentally putting myself in the position of the thing. Watch any craftsperson working, like a wood carver they feel the object, they almost caress the wood they carve. It is as though we humans are programmed to feel outside ourselves and that is the act of imagination. You only have to see a group of cartoonists work, they pull all sorts of exaggerated expressions as they work, they don't have mirrors so they are not copying the expressions they are pulling in their drawings, but by feeling those expressions in their faces it seems in some way it helps express it on the page.
OK that might be just something to do with art, not about the general human experience, something learnt recently, but I don't think so, seeing from a different point of view, putting yourself in another's position I think is central to the human mind.
I remember reading a long time ago Konrad Lorenz, about how the Kalahari tribesmen track animals by becoming one with an animal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o
DId you notice that the arm of the tracker is not just the sign of the animal, but is used like the head and neck so he can watch how it moves. Man and animal in one.
So what I am saying is the combination of lion and man is no more an act of imagination than is the sculpture of the bird. This is not to dismiss it, the time alone that took to make it tell you this is a very significant work, but to nudge away from an agenda that I am told has had its day.