RESEARCH ARTICLE Towards an Accurate and Precise Chronology for the Colonization of Australia: The Example of Riwi, Kimberley, Western Australia Rachel Wood1☯*, Zenobia Jacobs2☯, Dorcas Vannieuwenhuyse3☯, Jane Balme3, Sue O’Connor4, Rose Whitau4 a11111 1 Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia, 2 Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, New South Wales, 2522, Australia, 3 School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, 6009, Australia, 4 Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia ☯ These authors contributed equally to this work. *
[email protected] OPEN ACCESS Citation: Wood R, Jacobs Z, Vannieuwenhuyse D, Balme J, O’Connor S, Whitau R (2016) Towards an Accurate and Precise Chronology for the Colonization Abstract of Australia: The Example of Riwi, Kimberley, 14 Western Australia. PLoS ONE 11(9): e0160123. An extensive series of 44 radiocarbon ( C) and 37 optically stimulated luminescence doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0160123 (OSL) ages have been obtained from the site of Riwi, south central Kimberley (NW Austra- Editor: Marco Peresani, University of Ferrara, ITALY lia). As one of the earliest known Pleistocene sites in Australia, with archaeologically sterile sediment beneath deposits containing occupation, the chronology of the site is important in Received: May 4, 2016 renewed debates surrounding the colonization of Sahul. Charcoal is preserved throughout Accepted: July 12, 2016 the sequence and within multiple discrete hearth features. Prior to 14C dating, charcoal has Published: September 21, 2016 been pretreated with both acid-base-acid (ABA) and acid base oxidation-stepped combus- Copyright: © 2016 Wood et al.