Professor Lyndall Ryan & The ‘Shoddy Research’ of the Colonial Massacre Map at University of Newcastle — Dark Emu Exposed

To Be Posted 16 March 2026

Just how bad is the state of scholarship within some of our universities?

We know for example that the University of Newcastle employs fake Aboriginal academics, as we have recently exposed in the case of Associate Professor Liz Cameron.

If being infiltrated by fakes is not bad enough, we now find that things at the University Newcastle are even worse, according to historian Michael Connor.

In a March 2026 article, When Bad Universities Get Worse (Quadrant online 26 Feb 2026) Connor details a sorry tale of academic plagiarism and ‘shoddy research’ within the department responsible for the world famous Colonial Massacre Map [See the New Yorker 2017].

This is the same Colonial Massacre Map that is now relied upon to support the Labor Federal Government’s new Australian History curriculum with its Australian Wars module produced by the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (Figure 1), as reported by Peta Credlin on 11 March 2026 in the Australian.

Connor’s 2026 article summarised the results of his long battle to get an acceptable response to valid points he first raised in 2020 about the Colonial Massacre Map’s ‘plagiarism’ and ‘shoddy research.’

The fact that it took a formal and expensive GIPA application (Government Information (Public Access) Act—formerly known as Freedom of Information [FOI]) to get the University to finally respond to Connor indicates their unwillingness to publicly address his very valid concerns about the Colonial Massacre Map’s considerable shortcomings. Other highly respected historians have published similar misgivings about the Maps accuracy.

As detailed in the following set of emails, the Colonial Massacre Map’s creator and administrator, the late Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan, essentially had to be dragged kicking and screaming by an outside auditing academic expert to address Connor’s list of complaints. Under the GIPA [FOI] request, 55 pages of the auditor’s report and related correspondence were released (out of a total of some 700 pages related to this audit process).

Based on the findings of the audit report, and Professor Ryan’s reluctance and tardiness in responding to the urgent actions recommended by the auditor, the Colonial Massacre map was pulled off-line in 2021. It was only reinstated after Professor Ryan had been forced to:

Revise and correct 26 plagiarised and/or ‘shoddy’ so-called frontier massacre sites;
delete five alleged massacre sites after it was found that there was no evidence that they had even occurred - that is, they were ‘fake’ massacres and,
agree that the remaining 374 sites and their citations would undergo a further audit for accuracy.

Professor Ryan’s displeasure at having her Colonial Massacre Map audited and forcibly amended was on full display in her email to the Dean of her School, Professor Catharine Coleborne (see email in Figure 2):

Figure 2 - Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan expresses her “outrage” to her Head of School Dean, Professor Coleborne at the “massacre denialists” by their simple desire for a routine audit of the “academic excellence/integrity” of the professor’s Colonial Massacre Map. *Source: FOI Request LR0001938*

Professor Coleborne then goes ‘in to bat’ for Professor Ryan over a breakfast with the Unviversity of Newcastle Vice-Chancellor Alex Zelensky (see email in Figure 3):

Figure 3 - Head of School Dean Professor Coleman plays the ‘Far Right’ “deep racism and hatred in Australia” card against members of the public and other academics who raise very valid concerns about plagiarism, accuracy and transparency within the University’s Colonial Massacre Map department. Professor Coleborne’s slur is deeply offensive and potentially defamatory. *Source: FOI Request LR0001938*

Despite Professor Coleborne’s protestations, and her racist ad hominem attack on the messengers who are only pointing out scholarly short-comings in the Colonial Massacre Map, it was pulled off-line on 21 June 2021.

The reasoning is that the auditor concluded the map had serious issues regarding extensive plagiarism and inaccuracy in, or non-existence of, some claimed massacres. The auditor also highlighted worrying issues with ‘poor practice’ and inaccuracies regarding citations and sources. The University was also aware that Professor Ryan had not made the necessary amendments to the map, as recommended by the auditor, within the expected time-frame.

Professor Ryan was “devastated” at having her research work of the past twenty years de-platformed from the University’s website as she related in an email to the Vice-Chancellor. Surprisingly (or perhaps not?) for a highly distinguished academic, who had spent a career studying colonial violence, she also appears to include a veiled threat - or is it blackmail? - in her email to Vice-Chancellor Zelinsky (see Figure 4):

Figure 4 - Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan claims she is “devastated” by the de-platforming of her Colonial Massacre Map in her apparently veiled-threat email to Vice-Chancellor Zelinsky. “Unless the map is restored, I cannot in all conscience present the [upcoming] address” she informs him. Is this a form of academic blackmail? Readers can make their own speculations. *Source: FOI Request LR0001938*

With twenty minutes of receiving Professor Ryan’s ultimatum, Vice-Chancellor Zelinsky folds and, perhaps wisely for a man whose email footnotes claim, “I stand for equity and diversity and have taken the University of Newcastle Gender Equality Leadership Pledge”, he handballs this issue involving several, powerful female academics to be sorted out by another woman, his Chief of Staff Keryn Stewart (see Figure 5):

**Figure 5 -**‍ ‍*Source: FOI Request LR0001938*

The next day, things seem to be back on track after Vice-Chancellor Zelinsky appoints a highly respected and experienced Professor of ‘Schooling” - a man and a foreigner no less, from the Deep South of America, Professor John Fischetti - to sort out the bruised egos and get the audited integrity issues with the Colonial Massacre Map fixed.

Vice-Chancellor Zerlinsky’s soothing email to Professor Ryan (see Figure 6) seems to do the trick with Professor Ryan doing a mea culpa. Ryan confirms in writing the issues raised by Connor and the auditor have been corrected (see email in Figure 7).

**Figure 6** - *Source: FOI Request LR0001938*

Professor Ryan’s mea culpa email is in Figure 7:

**Figures 7A - Professor Ryan confirms she has undertaken the necessary actions to conform to Michael Connor’s critiques and the auditors recommendations.** *Source: FOI Request LR0001938*

Conclusion

Speaking in the vernacular, many researchers such as myself consider the University of Newcastle’s Colonial Frontiers Massacre Map to be as ‘dodgy as hell’; and we are horrified it is being used to indoctrinate our students with the theory of the so-called ‘Frontier Wars’ as part of their new history curriculum for Years 9 & 10, also reported in the Australian.

By applying objective research methodology to any one of a number of the so-called massacres listed in the Professor Ryan’s Massacre Map, one invariably can prove they are ‘fake’ massacres. Michael Connor was able to show that at least 6 prominent ‘massacres’ were actually fake and Professor Ryan agreed by deleting them from her map (See Figure 7A above).

My own research has shown that Professor Ryan’s so-called Fraser Island massacre of 50 Aborigines never occurred and I still have a $1000 prize on offer to the first person who can prove that it did occur - after more than a year the prize money still has not been collected.

And Professor Ryan, while she was alive, was very indignant at our research that showed she was mistaken in her reliance on the testimony of the claimed ‘eye-witness’ Edward White in the so-called Risdon Cove massacre - she called our proofs that White could not have been in Risdon Cove in 1804 “ridiculous” in an interview with the Australian newspaper. Yet our $5000 Edward White prize to the first researcher to prove we are wrong still stands after several years - no one, not even Professor Ryan or any of her team have claimed it. This is because they can’t - they have no real evidence for their claims made on their Colonial Massacre Map that the massacre at Risdon Cove occurred.

Apophenia in motion - The Legacy of Professor Lyndall Ryan’s Cavalier Approach to Citations and Numbers in Historiography.

Watch the video of Channel Nine's Sunday Program of 25th May 2003 (when Australian political TV was more balanced!!) which exposes Professor Lyndall Ryan’s 'Fabrication of Aboriginal History'.