About 50 Aboriginal activists have been arrested and charged with trespass after trying to stop construction at a road bypass near Hobart.
Protest spokesman Michael Mansell says a four kilometre-long stretch at Brighton, in a valley near where two rivers converge, was an ancient crossroads for Tasmanian Aborigines pre-dating Egypt's Pyramids.
Artefacts have been discovered at the site and work has stopped at two of four significant areas, he said.
"On the other two, they have already bulldozed in Aboriginal sites," Mr Mansell said.
"At one of them, where the bulldozers currently are, we want some sub-surface digs because the view is if there was no artefacts on the surface there but they were at the other three areas then they could be further down.
"But the government didn't do that. They simply said send the bulldozers in, going helter skelter to put the highway through.
"This heritage is older, by tens of thousands of years, than the Pyramids - why on earth would you destroy it without understanding it?"
Activists from Mr Mansell's Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre want a stop to work on the bypass until a full audit of indigenous heritage is completed.
Police charged 25 activists with trespass on Tuesday after they entered the site to try to stop the bulldozers.
A further 20 or so activists were similarly charge on Friday.
The group has vowed to continue its efforts to stop construction at this particular stretch of the $164 million road.
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