Planners have state permission to move two graves to make way for the project, and now say they must move three more burials that were found more recently. Two other sets of remains in the path of the project may need to be moved, or may be preserved in place depending on the final design of the road, county officials say.

Those finds and the request to move the graves have triggered furious challenges by Hawaiians, who said the archaeological excavations that unearthed the bones amount to desecration.

"We want the kupuna to rest, not in pieces, but in place, and with respect, where they were meant to be," said Violet Leihulu Medeiros-Mamac, a cultural practitioner, at a meeting of the Hawai'i Island Burial Council last week.

These particular bones are critical to both Hawaiians and to the road because the dispute over them could delay federal funding for the highway, possibly even throwing the $50 million project into doubt.

In many ways, the conflict mirrors a larger clash of cultures in Kona.

Kona residents badly want relief from their growing traffic problems, and bitterly complain that the state and county don't seem to care that residents are trapped in rush-hour jams each day. Unrest over traffic has sparked a backlash against new developments, and loud demands for new roads.

The long-planned 4.5-mile stretch of Ali'i Highway is a major piece the county's solution to the problem. McClure said the project is the "backbone" for addressing the traffic snarl that that develops daily south of Kailua in Honalo and Kealakekua.

The county hopes in early 2005 to begin 18 months of construction on the first 2.5-mile segment of the new road from Keauhou Shopping Center to Lako Street. Work is planned later on the second phase of the project, which would extend from Lako Street across Kuakini Highway to the Queen Ka'ahumanu Highway.

When the new road connects with a partly built road constructed by the private developer of the 1,550-acre luxury Hokuli'a project, it will provide an almost entirely new route from the area just south of Kailua to Captain Cook.

But Hawaiian activists such as Jim Medeiros Sr., who helped wage the court battle that halted the Hokuli'a project last year, said the new road will do little to solve Kona's traffic problems. Medeiros agreed Kona needs traffic relief, but said the road will open new areas up to development, and in the end will actually make traffic congestion worse.

"To the end of that road, it will be just slammed with development and bringing in more people, more everything, with no infrastructure," he said. "That little road with one lane (in each direction) is not going to serve nobody but the rich people who buy that place."

The Ali'i Highway project passes through some areas that were well populated by Hawaiians by the 1600s. County officials estimate $3 million to $4 million has been spent on archaeological studies and design since 1995, and planning began long before that.

The various proposed routes for the road have repeatedly been surveyed and studied by archaeologists starting in 1973, and planners rerouted the road several times to avoid heiau.

The highway route was shifted once toward the sea to avoid two heiau, including Paoumi Heiau. That site was an agricultural heiau and reportedly home to Hawa'e, a kahuna 'ana'ana, or sorcerer who practices black magic, according to oral histories cited in the archaeological reports.

In another area, engineers designed a 2-foot tall 120-foot long bridge to avoid the 'Ohia Cave, a half-mile complex of caves with burials. The bridge will add an estimated $2 million to the cost of the highway project.

The cave was used as shelter, a refuge in wartime and as a burial cavern, and its history includes stories of voices that called from deep within the network to people who had entered and desecrated the cave. Those people would be drawn to the voice and become lost, according to the oral histories.

Another bend in the road was designed to avoid Keakea-laniwahine Residential Complex, part of the Kona royal center at Holualoa Bay. The complex is believed to be the home of chiefess Keakealaniwahine, who lived in the 1600s.

Medeiros, chief executive officer of the nonprofit Protect Keopuka 'Ohana, says the burial council and the descendants of the Hawaiians who are buried in the highway's path are being improperly excluded from the decisions concerning most of the remains.

He contends that is being done to allow the project to advance more quickly. And Medeiros said he is prepared to sue over the issue.

McClure said there has been no attempt to improperly exclude anyone, and Big Island Mayor Harry Kim has pledged to the burial council that the county will follow the law and be respectful of the remains.

Kim cited the importance of the highway, and said balancing cultural considerations with the needs of the community "has not been easy task, but we are trying to do that."

The issue is emotional. During the Hawai'i Island Burial Council meeting last week, Medeiros stood before the council and shouted down an archaeologist after the archaeologist described using a hammer to break into a lava tube and discovering a burial.

The find occurred during excavation of a site described in differing studies as either a home site or a possible burial in the path of the Ali'i Highway project. The excavation was authorized, but Medeiros accused the archaeologist of "desecration."

The burial council is scheduled at its next meeting to again consider the issue of moving the burials.