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Because of their inherent symbolic significance, personal ornaments gained a key role in the scientific debate regarding the emergence and evolution of symbolic behaviour; the presumed Acheulean beads discovered in the nineteenth century in northern Europe’s sites are considered crucial evidence of this. The fossils of the sponge Porosphaera globularis, because of their morphological characteristics, have been interpreted by some archaeologists as the starting point of this evolutionary path. In this work, the largest collection of Porosphaera globularis specimens is analysed, after remaining unpublished to this day. This was originally found in the French site of Saint-Acheul and preserved at the Civic Museums of Modena. An integrated analysis was carried out to understand whether these fossils were indeed used as beads; results revealed that they were actually not used as ornaments. This suggests the importance of finding strong arguments and evidence to support theories about the development of cognitive abilities in the genus Homo.

Boat engravings represent one of the most recurrent and characteristic themes in Gobustan rock art. From a stylistic point of view informed by preliminary studies, it seems that boat figures have been engraved over a long span of time, suggesting the importance of the aquatic environment of the past. Today Gobustan is a semi-desert region facing the Caspian Sea, which has shaped the area during the millennia. Petroglyphs and transgression and regression movements of the sea have deeply influenced the landscape of Gobustan. Therefore the studied different boat engravings in Boyuk Das, one of the five rock art sites in Gobustan, for a deeper understanding and the kinds of relationship that existed between humans, sea-landscapes and the engraved figures.

Caves as geosites structurally illustrate the strict dependence of human occupation on geological and geomorphological processes, playing a crucial role in the development of human civilisation. Grotta Romanelli embodies such a kind of geosite, being a coastal cave occupied by humans since the Middle Pleistocene and considered a symbol of the Palaeolithic period in Europe. Research on the cave, derived from the excavation activities carried out last century, consisted of a well-documented stratigraphic framework, abundant fossil remains and archaeological findings which included tools and rock art. The excavation activities stopped for about 40 years, hampering any new research on the cave. In 2015, new fieldwork was initiated and the multidisciplinary team immediately had to face several conservation issues linked to natural processes (erosion, degradation of the walls due to biodeteriogens) and human activities (mainly legal and illegal excavations). The use of 3D technologies to document the different phases of the research, from the field work to the digital reconstruction of fossil remains, has been extensively applied and represents an attempt to solve the issues of accessibility, education and sharing the heritage, which should be further implemented in the future.

The site of Pire Mazar Balandar (or PMB001) is located near the village of Balandar in the Khorasan region of north-eastern Iran (33°09′37.64′′N, 59°29′52′′E; Figure 1). It consists of an outcrop of volcanic rock on a mountain peak (1532m asl) on the north-eastern side of the Binaloud range, above the city of Mashhad (Figure 2).

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