Alan, all these are useful to understanding rock art, especially when used with embodied or grounded/enactive approaches that rely on a "bottom up" paradigm, which, unlike symbolic approaches, do not stray too far from the actual materials involved.

A good way of working with multi- or transdisciplinary approaches for these sorts of problems is to use the methods and contributions of each discipline as a filter. Each hypothesis should be passed through every applicable filter; those surviving confrontation with all classes of evidence will be robust. Such a method can provide more accurate answers to our questions than those obtained by working within a particular discipline. I don't think that a hierarchy is needed; each discipline may be given equal weight, in general terms. For a specific question, one or more disciplinary perspectives may be more useful than others, but all disciplines that may shed light on that question should be considered.

As any art form , its meaning is experiential , i.e. in the experience it induces  for those familiar with this artform.  We live in urban modern cultures so different from those who made the rock art.  It would be interesting to let native people of today that hunt, that experience all sort of traditional art forms, experience the rock art and to document what kind of resonance rock arts have on them.  Just trying to get a good art critic on rock art, a look from the interior , from a person for which rock art rock. My hypothesis is that the type of culture for which rock art would resonate the most would be more similar to the one of the rock artists.  

In terms of taking into account context, this should also include the sensory context of a site where rock art occurs.  So, although vision is perhaps the primary sense modality in humans, the following senses are also fundamental: sense of touch especially in caves, sound where echoes occur, the sense of presence associated with the special qualities or unusualness of a landmark of a  site, the affordances suggested relating to the prevailing surfaces and so forth, any of which, singly or together, may facilitate performative practices related to a location. 

While Colson and others have valid points, Brassard's suggestion also has merit. As I just noted in another of Alan's questions, native peoples who still live or feel connected to the land might relate to the "rock art". And, not necessarily natives to that specific area. We know that prehistoric pottery designs were replicated throughout the eastern U.S. Were these by independent invention or dissemination, as in this means that?

As mentioned, I noted that pottery designs from a late prehistoric site in south Louisiana were shown to a local Chitimacha Indian basket maker. Come to find out, the pottery motifs matched traditional basket weaving designs that had been passed down from generation to generation. Each design had a name and meaning/lore, some of which have been lost in tribal memory.

I have been observing, collecting and cataloging photos and drawings of rock-art for many years, and have some half-formulated ideas. Unfortunately, my research into other areas is taking all of my attention at this time, but many interesting ideas have been put forwards.  I am particularly interested in how rock-art is dated, and items in the drawings that connect them together into a worldwide phenomena that took place over a relatively short period of time (several hundred years). My initial concept is that they were produced by a particular group of people that explored much of the earth and left the artwork as a record of their visit.  Then afterwards the local natives followed suit, and made their own rock art. It may sound fanciful, but there are many similarities when looking at the rock art of 200 BC to 200 AD.

Article Early Dhows in PreIslamic Petroglyphs

I have a cross-cultural, comparative chapter on "Stones" in my book "A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects." Works through modern art (e.g., Noguchi and Goldsworthy), ancient connections in Shinto traditions, some geology, indigenous North American cultures, etc. 

I have a cross-cultural, comparative chapter on "Stones" in my book "A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects." Works through modern art (e.g., Noguchi and Goldsworthy), ancient connections in Shinto traditions, some geology, indigenous North American cultures, etc. 

I have a cross-cultural, comparative chapter on "Stones" in my book "A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects." Works through modern art (e.g., Noguchi and Goldsworthy), ancient connections in Shinto traditions, some geology, indigenous North American cultures, etc. 

http://www.beacon.org/A-History-of-Religion-in-5-Objects-P997.aspx

Sonya Foss has a research approach called visual rhetoric which postulates that visual images are just as persuasive as 'text' used in the field of communication and approaches are very similar to the way WWII posters are examined.

Patricia, thank you for confirming that "there are rock art universals (the very act of marking is a universal) and, whatever our research preoccupation, it's helpful to keep them in mind."

I have isolated five layers of universal elements in art (including rock art, which is structurally, cognitively, functionally in the broad sense identical to art), worldwide in all ears, and clearly subconscoius. Level A usually contains sixteen characters (sometimes minimised to twelve) characters, expressing the universal set of archetypes; level B is their consistent sequence. Level C is the axial grid between their eyes, thus a highly complex spatial arrangement that is clearly subconscious and compulsive, or hard-wired). Level D is a set of central or 'polar' markers, thus a kind of inherent cosmology. Level E is the relationship of the polar features, and thus the entire 'design', to the horizontal or vertical plane of the work. The last level slowly changes with the cosmological Ages, through no conspiracy or any conscious process, but again subconscious.

Thus he most suitable means of inferring meaning and function for rock art, is first to study art more deeply than art history does; and ignoring 'cultural' styling (which is merely a localised socio-political mechanism for claiming resources and exploitation of other groups). We have to study the core content of art and other cultural media (building sites, ritual, myth).

I have contributed six papers to the anthropology journal Expression, where you will also find many other responses to the present question. I give a broader introduction to my book on rock art and art, Mindprint (2014, Lulu.com), and many of the 200 examples, on www.mindprintart.wordpress.com

Some of the responses here do what science often does, by separating the study into the kinds of data available. My method is prone to the same problem, however I have revealed a new kind of data. 

I invite your comments on whether my work answers your call for universals.