For hundreds of years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have spoken about the murders of Indigenous tribes that occurred across the nation during frontier times.

Key points: Landmark project mapping Indigenous massacres from 1788-1930 now includes 250 sites across Australia

Landmark project mapping Indigenous massacres from 1788-1930 now includes 250 sites across Australia Extensive new research details killings in Queensland, South Australia and the NT

Extensive new research details killings in Queensland, South Australia and the NT Research team contacted by hundreds of Australians offering insights about where Indigenous groups were killed

Now a landmark project mapping those massacres has hit a sobering point — 250 sites have been documented across almost every state and territory.

For historian Lyndall Ryan, who has worked to map these haunting sites for years, this project has been revealing, and taxing.

"We find we have to walk away from it quite often. You put all those together and you get a very distressing story … it is very confronting, it is very confronting work."

There has been a staggering amount of interest internationally and locally in the massacres map, a first of its kind, which was launched a year ago by the University of Newcastle.

Multiple massacre sites have since been added, with extensive new research of deaths in Queensland, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

The yellow dots show the location of killings of Aboriginal people, and the blue dots show where non-Indigenous people were killed. ( Supplied: University of Newcastle )

Each marker on the map defines a massacre of six or more people, and includes several deadly attacks on settlers committed by Aboriginal tribes.

Details of who were killed, the approximate location of the conflict and, in some cases, the motive and the perpetrators are included.

"The massacres don't seem to stop, they continue well into the 20th century," Professor Ryan said.

"We also find that in the 20th century, more people seem to be killed in one operation, that's because the weaponry is more sophisticated, the perpetrators know Aboriginal people and they can plan for the attack."

The research team has been contacted by hundreds of Australians offering their insights about where Indigenous groups were killed from the 18th century onwards, adding what Professor Ryan called "a more human story" to the map.

"We've been spending the last year double-checking every new piece of information that we've got," she said.

"The oral sources are very important because they can identify the names of people who were the particular perpetrators, they can identify the particular groups that were the victims of the massacre, they can give us more information about the actual site."

The researchers now need additional funding to begin studying massacres of Western Australia's population, and Professor Ryan said she thought the number of sites could rise to 500.

Monuments to massacres 'recognition of what's happened'

The map marks conflicts leading up to 1930 and details violent attacks of more than 6,000 Aboriginal people who were shot dead, driven over cliffs and poisoned.

One of the massacres added to the map's second stage this year was the Waterloo Bay massacre, on South Australia's western Eyre Peninsula.

The map describes the massacre as a "reprisal" on the local Wirangu people "for killing two settlers and taking food".

In May 1849 a group of settlers chased a number of Wirangu people to Waterloo Bay, and shot and killed at least 10 as they sought refuge in the bushes.

Elders maintain that many more were killed.

Indigenous groups have long maintained that more than 200 Wirangu died at Waterloo Bay. ( Supplied: SA Native Title Services )

For Danielle James, whose great-great-great-grandmother Maggie A'Hang was a baby at the time and rumoured to have survived the attack, visits to the site bring her to tears each time she travels to the clifftops.

"The women would have been shielding the children, and shielding the babies," she said. "And for that reason, when they were shot, they most likely put their babies behind them so that they wouldn't get shot.

"If that did not occur then I, several generations on, wouldn't be here today."

Last year, the local council at Elliston voted to keep the word "massacre" on a memorial plaque at the site of the 19th century attack.

"When I returned this year, for me it was a different feeling. I was going there expecting to feel emotional again, but having seen the monument that's been erected in recognition of what's happened … I found it to be quite a cathartic experience," Ms James said.

There is currently no national monument to colonial massacres of Aboriginal people.

Brook Andrew, a Wiradjuri artist, has led a two-year project looking at memorials to massacres, genocide and trauma overseas, and said in Australia "recognition is not that visible".

"I think that many Australians are finally realising the very difficult histories in Australia, in regards to massacres and conflicts — there was a war with the British in Australia," he said.

"That kind of space to commemorate and memorialise [the massacres] is definitely missing and I think there needs to be some kind of structure or building … or even consciousness."

'We come and show respect to these people'

On a warm winter's day at Appin, south-west of Sydney, Uncle Ivan Wellington perches on a rock overlooking a modest monument to one of Australia's most well-known massacres.

Uncle Ivan Wellington helped establish the Appin plaque several years ago. ( ABC News: Bridget Brennan )

"This is a reminder. It's a dark chapter in the history of what became and what happened to the Dharawal people," he said. "That's why we come and show respect to these people."

A plaque paying tribute to the dead reads: "We are deeply sorry. We will remember them."

In April 1816, 14 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed by soldiers during a military operation. Some fled over a cliff as the soldiers approached on horseback.

The plaque at Appin marks the massacre of Aboriginal men, women and children in 1816. ( ABC News: Bridget Brennan )

Governor Lachlan Macquarie dispatched three military regiments to "rid the land of the troublesome blacks", according to his diary.

Mr Wellington, who helped establish the plaque several years ago at the Appin site, said he had been overwhelmed by the interest in the history of the attack — more than 1,000 people attended this year's memorial service.

"They want to know more, and it just gets bigger and bigger," he said.