Making the Past Visible: The University of Newcastle's map of frontier massacres

Frontier massacre is a highly contested topic in Australia.  It was the subject of the Aboriginal History Wars that gripped the Australian media 2002-2005, and since then the debate has largely focussed on the reliability of evidence and whether massacre were widespread across the colonial frontier.  These issues are critical to our understanding of the past and who we are as Australians.

The University of Newcastle’s online map of frontier massacre is the first to address these critical issues.  In this presentation Professor Ryan will show how the map is based on more than a decade of research into the characteristics of massacre and the need for a definition of frontier massacre and a coherent methodology to assess the reliability of disparate forms of evidence.  She will then demonstrate how the map works by focussing on a range of incidents and show how the technologies used in the map provide another dimension to testing the reliability of the evidence. 

The presentation will conclude with a preliminary analysis of the findings of Stage I of the Map and whether they could be relevant to Stage 2 of the map, launched in early May 2018. 

This event is hosted by the Heritage Branch, Department of Tourism and Culture.