LAHAINA, Maui — Construction of the long-awaited Lahaina bypass will have to wait at least a little longer.

A state-hired archaeologist said a survey team needs more time to determine if two sites in the path of the highway's first phase are old Hawaiian burial grounds.

"Right now, we don't know if these are burials or not," Laura Mau, a senior planner for Wilson Okamoto Corp., told the Maui/Lana'i Islands Burial Council last week.

Some members of Native Hawaiian families with potential ties to the sites told the burial council that, either way, they don't want to see the highway built at the risk of losing burial or cultural sites.

Mau's company is designing the half-mile stretch of the Lahaina bypass Phase 1A, which would be the first section of a 10-mile highway to relieve bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Honoapi'ilani Highway.

Construction on the $48 million Phase 1A would run from Lahainaluna Road to a future extension of Keawe Street. After 30 years of planning that moved in starts and stops like traffic on the highway, the project was supposed to begin in July and then was postponed indefinitely by the discovery of the sites.

Mau said her company could redesign the bypass to avoid any significant cultural sites found.

"The project is on hold until we resolve these cultural issues," said state deputy transportation director Brennon Morioka, who heads the highways division.

Archaeologist Tanya Lee-Greig, of Cultural Services Hawai'i, called the two sites "significant." Both might predate the arrival in Hawai'i of British explorer Capt. James Cook, she said. She has mapped and marked the area but has yet to begin excavation. Asked when her work might be completed, Lee-Greig replied, "I can't say right now."

One site contains an L-shaped wall in which a hammer stone was discovered. Described as a gardening terrace, it could have been used to cultivate sweet potatoes; and there may be remains within the less than two feet of soil above the bedrock, said burial council chairman Charles Kauluwehi Maxwell Sr.

The other area is about two acres and might have been terraced for hand-cultivated sugar cane, Lee-Greig said.

During a visit to the area Thursday morning, members of the Maui/Lana'i Islands Burial Council examined the burgundy earth and hand-built rock walls. A traditional Hawaiian prayer was said by council member Ke'eaumoku Kapu for "future and past families."

Kapu later said he would recuse himself from any decision because any remains found there might belong to his family.

State Historic Preservation Division officials said they are continuing to meet with residents to research the area's history and determine what the people want to see happen there.

Uilani Kapu, president of Kuleana Ku'ikahi, said that after decades of Hawaiians seeing burial grounds being desecrated by development, it's not satisfactory to just realign the highway. The roadway is not acceptable at all, she said.

"What's hurting us now is that we still have kupuna out there," Kalani Kapu, a Kuleana Ku'ikahi member, told the council.

Kuleana Ku'ikahi is a cultural preservation group seeking to protect traditional Hawaiian rights, practices and lands that has intervened in plans to develop subdivisions of agricultural land in West Maui.

The State Historic Preservation Division had recommended further review of the sites, which were not assessed thoroughly in environmental studies conducted 15 years ago and again in 2002.