However, the details recorded on the landmark research project for an incident at Twofold Bay are questionable.

The map plots over 170 incidents that took place between 1794 and 1872, encompassing massacres of both Aboriginals and colonists at the hands of each other. 

Eden’s is the only massacre recorded for what is now the Bega Valley region, and one of only three sites across the whole eastern seaboard that marks a massacre of colonialists by local Indigenous tribes.

The map records an attack inflicted upon colonialists by an Aboriginal group at Twofold Bay in March 1806, one of the map's earliest listed events.

The map references an article from The Sydney Gazette as supporting evidence.

However the article, published April 6th 1806, while ambiguously worded, appears to contradict the version of events outlined by the University of Newcastle's map.

The digital map records nine colonists killed in an alleged Aboriginal attack on sealers’ camp. It suggests this may have been in response to the sealers’ abduction of Aboriginal women.

But the article reads a group of Aboriginal men approached the sealers, and in defense, the sealers "commenced a fire, by which nine of their assailants were lain prostrate".

The article concludes that the sealers thought it "advisable to suspend those that fell on the limbs of trees" to deter future attacks.

This version of events is supported by the research of Robert Sykes from the Eden Killer Whale Museum. 

In his paper, Frontier Conflict in the Twofold Bay area and Southern Monaro, Mr Sykes asserts that "Kudingal men surrounded the crew of the sealing sloop ‘George’ and the sealers fired upon the group, killing several and wounding more".

Mr Sykes provided further evidence in a transcript of NSW Governor Philip Gidley King to Earl Camden dated 15 March, 1806. 

"I am sorry to observe that a small private Colonial vessel laden with sealskins, was stranded in Twofold Bay, near the south part of this coast," Governor King wrote. 

"The natives in great numbers surrounded the few men belonging to the vessel, commencing their attack by setting the grass on the surrounding ground on fire, and throwing spears, which, according to report, rendered it necessary to fire on them, when some of the natives were killed."

Professor Lyndall Ryan, the University of Newcastle academic leading the digital map program, was contacted regarding the conflict of information, but has not responded as yet. 

The map data shows noticeably less massacre activity on the southern coast of NSW  than the rest of the state's coastline.

Referencing the work of Historian Mark McKenna, Mr Sykes wrote that although conflicts occurred in the region, they were not adequately recorded. 

"Few of the stories of frontier brutality can be verified, but there are too many embedded in the oral culture of both Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals in the area for them all to be fabrications," his report states.

As the University of Newcastle progresses with the project, more recent massacres will be added to the map's database.

The project is open to corrections and suggestions from the public, and invites people to contribute or corroborate information.

"There may be corrections, changes and additions, including the rest of the continent, as more information becomes available," its website reads.

The map show concentrations of massacres of Aboriginal people in Southwest Victoria and Eastern Tasmania. 

A massacre is defined by the project as the indiscriminate killing of six or more people. 

RELATED COVERAGE