This-<p><i>...the idea that city placement corresponds to cosmology on that scale implies a top down plan that we frankly know didn&#x27;t exist. Maya cities have different origins. Some were occupied going back to the Formative&#x2F;Preclassic period. Others were founded later. All were ruled by their own political dynasties that did not typically coordinate with each other. The entire Classic Maya civilization was dominated by an elite culture composed of feuding lineages that were constantly seeking to one-up their rivals through warfare and competitive festivals. So while we have lots of evidence for cosmically-informed planning within cities, there are few examples of that between cities. To suggest that such a cosmic order existed across the entire Maya lowlands would require rejecting mountains of evidence demonstrating the opposite.<p>Don&#x27;t get me wrong, I think it&#x27;s awesome that this kid is doing satellite-based remote sensing surveys at 15. I think it&#x27;s awesome that he found some ruins through that, regardless of whether anybody already knew about it. But lets not blow this whole thing out of proportion.</i>