Chapter 7 focuses on the Late Preclassic figured world, which was dominated by the monumental stone representations of rulers and their gods, and the social, political, and fundamentally aesthetic systems that sustained it. It utilizes theories of “high culture” in its consideration of these dynamics, noting both the strengths and the weaknesses of such models. It summarizes the themes and distributions of Late Preclassic monuments from the south coast while also considering the role of hieroglyphic texts, narrativity, human figuration, assertions of moral supremacy, and ritual efficacy in sustaining assertions of elite privilege. It also applies the concept of the “evolution of social simplicity” to explain the Late Preclassic social dynamics through which the field of aesthetic possibilities for human representation were drastically narrowed.