Ancient Pyramid Torn Down by Developers: Peru

Peruvian authorities say a pair of real-estate developers have ruined a 4,000-year-old pyramid, and they're facing criminal charges, the BBC reports. "Irreparable damage" was done to the 20-foot-high pyramid, says an archeologist. The El Paraiso complex, near Lima, had 12 pyramids; the companies tried to tear down three others before witnesses stopped them.

El Paraiso was a religious and administrative area dating much earlier than the Incas, experts say. Now, "we are not going to be able to know in what ways it was constructed, what materials were used in it, and how the society in that part of the pyramid behaved," the archeologist tells the AP. (In more encouraging archaeological news, researchers in Peru made an exciting find recently.)