A year before the Swiss Federal Council issued a decree stating that archaeology should be part of the construction costs of a motorway (13 March 1961), Swiss Archaeology was charged with creating an archaeological central office for national road construction (AZN). While it was also initially active in the field, the authority, in conjunction with the cantonal archaeological departments concerned as well as representatives of the Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) and Swiss Archaeology (brought together in the supervisory body AZN), has since evolved into an institution which assists the offices concerned in dealing with the archaeological heritage uncovered during the construction of national roads by acting as a coordinating, informing and evaluating agency. The office also keeps records and statistics concerning the archaeological investigations carried out throughout the entire national roads network.

An important change for the Swiss national roads and the Federal Roads Office took place in early 2008, when the cantonal authorities officially handed over responsibility for the motorways to the Federal Government as part of the reorganisation of the equalisation payment system. This also brought about changes to the organisation of FEDRO, including the decentralisation of fundamental functions to newly created outposts. Since the spring of 2011 FEDRO employs its own archaeological expert.

The archaeological central office and its supervisory board were dissolved at the end of 2012.