Aboriginal settlement in Australia was no accident but the result of large-scale migration by skilled maritime explorers, research shows.

Experts have made the finding using wind and ocean current modelling, similar to that deployed in the search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

A now submerged string of islands between Australia and Timor and Roti. This kind of imagery has been used to pinpoint likely routes between the islands and the Australian mainland.

The process was designed to simulate likely routes between the islands of Timor and Roti and more than 100 now-submerged islands off the Kimberley coast.

“There’s always been a lot of speculation about how Aboriginal people made it to Australia and a lot of people have argued that people might have made it here by accident,” study co-author and James Cook University archaeology Professor Sean Ulm said.

“We’re talking multiple boats, not just one boat blowing off course … reflecting the population in the mainland South-East Asian area.”