The map of Australia’s frontier massacres is done, but researchers say picture remains unfinished

Code of silence' around mass killings and the technical definitions of massacres mean there is much more left to uncover

• See the final version of the frontier wars massacre map
• Almost half of massacres were by government forces

An eight-year long project to map the massacres of people on the Australian frontier is the first sustained effort to break the code of silence" on the violence of colonisation, its lead researcher says, but the full story is yet to be told.

The true picture may never be known because the code of silence about massacres has been universal", according to emeritus Prof Lyndall Ryan from the University of Newcastle's frontier massacres research project.