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Please see also our overview Understanding Rock Art of evidence and reasoning on dating, who made rock art, etc.
There are several situations particularly favorable for identifying whose ancestors made rock art in particular cultural traditions, and getting closer than we otherwise can to original intentions of the makers of that rock art. Here is a sampling. There are far more sources of valid knowledge than those listed here. Gentle readers, please suggest which ones will be most useful to add to this web page, or draft potential reading lists for us to add to our web site!
The Southwest of the USA, particularly the Hopi and nearby peoples. Traditional cultures are very much alive in these areas. There are too many examples to list here of how these cultures inform interpretation of rock art. A recent one is the 2007 book Hopi History in Stone. The Tutuveni Petroglyph Site, by Wesley Bernardini. Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series No. 200.
Plains Biographic Rock Art is discussed in our Understanding Rock Art. Ledger art made by known individuals uses the same symbolic conventions as in Plains Biographic Rock Art, and thus permits partial grounded "readings" of panels. Less direct reasoning comes from studies of symbolic motifs on shields (illustrated to the left on this web page). These could be a signature of individuals, and of course types of shields could be partly characteristic of particular peoples. The Plains reading list emphasizes especially plains and biographic rock art, and contains a section devoted to shields. Active research is now focusing on such shields, some of it reported in a paper at our 2009 ARARA annual conference.
Barrier Canyon and Fremont Rock Art Cultures. A suggestion has been made by David Sucec that two famous styles of rock art in Utah may be related, that the Barrier Canyon style may have developed into the Fremont style. If this hypothesis is further confirmed, if the intermediate styles do reflect this and not instead a borrowing and mutual influence between two unrelated styles (and peoples?), then this will help to establish a historical context. If further the Fremont style is successfully linked to ancestors of some living peoples, then we may have a sketch of much longer history.
Chumash Rock Art is distinctive, and is found in the area known to be inhabited by Chumash peoples for millennia, in lands close to the central coast of California from San Luis Obisbo through Santa Barbara to Ventura. Chumash ethnographic notes by John P. Harrington reach 90,000 pages, containing cosmology and legends and much other information. These and information from living descendents and from other sources provide a basis for some partial interpretations, and have been and are being used for that.
Australian Rock Art. For some rock art in Australia, there are living persons fully inducted into traditional ritual knowledge. Even if recent past generations of ritual experts do not have complete valid knowledge of what all of the rock art means (in any culture anywhere, since some rock art was created thousands of years ago and traditions do change), they certainly can have valid knowledge of a substantial portion of it. Please see the 2009 book Gornbun-Ya Rock Art Site Record and Associated Traditional Stories of Yidumduma Bill Harney, by Yidumduma Bill Harney, David M. Lee, and Brian Birdsall.