Chapter 6 shifts its focus to the Late Preclassic period and explores the implications of the dramatic figurine cessation that characterized the south coast of Mesoamerica, which was paralleled by an upsurge in the production of stone monuments featuring the bodies of ruling elites. It explores the relationship between these processes and state formation, or the increase ofcentralized political authority, arguing that understandings of the social utility of human figuration was at the heart of these dynamics. Its emphasis is on both the power – and threat – of human figuration as well as its corollary, bodily fragmentation, which exponentially increased the potency of any single object through its fragmentation into constituent pieces. It summons a great deal of mythic evidence from Mesoamerica to supports its points, but also discusses a much broader cross section of global literature concerning the ritual efficacy of human representation and its potential, if unregulated, to result in social and political chaos.