Science lecturers at the University of New South Wales have been told to stop telling students that Indigenous people's arrived in Australia 40,000 years ago.

In a letter sent to staff the lecturers were told that it is 'inappropriate' to teach dates and they should say Aboriginals have been here 'since the beginning of the Dreamings' because that is what indigenous people believe.

A set of classroom guidelines were circulated in the science faculty this month which alerted the scientists to the existing language advice, according to The Weekend Australian.

Science lecturers at the University of New South Wales have been told to refrain from teaching a date that Indigenous people's arrived in Australia (file picture)

The inclusivity language guidelines were approved by a working group involving dean Emma Johnston

Aboriginal people are thought to have arrived in Australia via land bridges from the north about 50,000 years ago.

It is generally accepted among scientists, however, that Indigenous people, like the rest of the world's human population, migrated from the African continent.

In 2018, a UNSW research centre in the science faculty said Indigenous Australians 'arrived soon after 50,000 years ago, effectively forever, given that modern human populations only moved out of ­Africa 50,000-55,000 years ago.'

The inclusivity language guidelines were approved by a working group involving dean Emma Johnston.

The guidelines say teaching a date for the arrival of Indigenous people 'tends to lend support to migration theories and anthropological assumptions.'

Many indigenous Australians see this sort of measurement as inappropriate the guidelines claim.

'The Aboriginal people I've worked with are enormously interested in the scientific evidence,' University of Wollongong ­archaeologist Richard Fullagar told the publication.

He did, however, also say that Aboriginal people he has worked with have sometimes told him that it is their cultural belief they have been here forever.