features with later Maya culture, including extensive jaguar-worship, a diet dominated by maize, and the use of the cacao plant. Several words entered Mayan from a Mixe–Zoquean language, presumably due to Olmec influence. Many of these borrowings relate to prestige concepts and high culture, indicating that the Middle Preclassic Maya were deeply impressed and influenced by their northwestern neighbors. Late Preclassic (400 BC–100 AD) The Late Preclassic saw the rise of two powerful states that rival later Classic Maya city-states for scale and monumental architecture, Kaminaljuyu in the highlands and El Mirador in the lowlands. Terminal Preclassic (100 AD–250 AD) The late or terminal Preclassic murals found in San Bartolo provide important information regarding mythology and royal inauguration ritual around 100 BC. Preclassic Collapse The story of the mysterious lost civilization that suddenly collapsed for an unknown reason has captured the popular imagination for well over a century. What is not as widely known is that there were two such "collapses", the first at the end of the Preclassic, and the more famous Classic Maya collapse. The "Preclassic collapse" refers to the systematic decline and abandoning of the major Preclassic cities such as El Mirador around 100 AD. A number of theories have been proposed to explain this collapse, but there is as little consensus here as there is for the causes of the more famous collapse leading to the Postclassic period. Culture Social structure The archaeological site of Kʼo, associated with the Classic Maya city of Holmul located in modern-day Guatemala, boasts what may be the royal tomb of the earliest known Maya ruler. This tomb has been dated to 350–300 BC, and it contains the earliest evidence of the institution of ajaw (ruler) in the Maya Lowlands. Writing Art and architecture Early Maya architecture is based on the general Mesoamerican architectural traditions. The stepped pyramids were constructed from the Terminal Pre-classic period onwards. In 2010, archaeologists at Chiapa de Corzo, southern Chiapas, Mexico, announced they have found a dignitary's tomb inside a pyramid that may be the oldest type of burial discovered in Mesoamerica. The grave dates from about 2,700 years ago. See also Takalik Abaj Potbelly sculpture Footnotes References Further reading .01 Formative period in the Americas History of the Yucatán Peninsula Mesoamerican cultures Pre-Columbian cultures of Mexico 2nd-millennium BC establishments in the Maya civilization 3rd-century disestablishments in the Maya civilization 2nd millennium BC in the Maya