If you are walking around the village of Douglas in northeastern Belize and you admire the roads, that's because they are the remnants of a Mayan pyramid (c. 350 BC to 250 AD) that were bulldozed to make road fill.

The pyramid, now 70% destroyed, was on private land nearby. It was approximately 50 by 52 meters and was 8 meters tall.

The cultural heritage site was unmistakable, and the construction company knew they were destroying an ancient ruin to pave a road. Unfortunately, this is not new in Belize. As Professor Norman Hammond of Boston University put it to the AP, "bulldozing Maya mounds for road fill is an endemic problem in Belize."

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