It is argued that the southern lowland Maya city of Nixtun-Ch'ich' (Petén, Guatemala) centered a Middle Preclassic (ca. 900/800–400 BCE) primate settlement distribution and was the capital of an archaic state. This highly atypical, gridded site provides a new view of Maya socio-political development, contrasting with traditional rejection of the existence of true cities and early state-level organization. The city’s roughly orthogonal urban grid of paved streets, mimicking the dorsal surface of a mythological creation crocodile while more pragmatically draining it of excess rainwater, defined 50+ sectors of dense construction with “E-Group” ritual architectural complexes at the monumental core. Six satellites of the city can be identified by similar complexes with shared orientations toward solar phenomena. The grid, drainage system, and creation landscape are evidence of massive labor mobilization for construction of public goods, and we argue a collective politico-ritual organization for early Nixtun-Ch'ich'.

有人认为，南部低地玛雅人城市Nixtun-Ch'ich（危地马拉，佩滕）以中古先知（约公元前900 / 800-400年）灵长类动物定居点为中心，并且是古州的首府。这个高度非典型的网格化站点提供了玛雅人社会政治发展的新视角，与传统上对真实城市和早期州级组织的拒绝形成了鲜明对比。这座城市大致呈正交的城市街道铺成网格，模仿了神话般的创造鳄鱼的背表面，同时更加务实地将其多余的雨水排干，从而在50多个密集建筑领域中建立了“ E-Group”仪式建筑群作为纪念性核心。城市中的六颗卫星可以通过类似的复合体来识别，它们具有共同的朝向太阳现象的方向。网格，排水系统，