Technological path dependence in the water management systems in the late prehistoric Yangtze Delta

Water management system can stabilise access to water resources while simultaneously creates path dependence, in which material, ecological and organisational commitments shape the possibilities for subsequent development. Focusing on the urban water management system of Liangzhu ancient city and the rural water management system at Maoshan of the Liangzhu culture (ca. 5300–4300 cal. BP), this study reconstructs four path-dependent developmental phases through changes in mediating capacity, understood as the combined capacity of material, agricultural and organisational arrangements to manage variability in water resources. The Maoshan case demonstrates that path dependence did not necessarily lead to technological lock-in, defined here as a condition in which a system becomes increasingly tied to an established pathway even as that pathway becomes less capable of sustaining its operation. Instead, at Maoshan, the daily operation of wetland rice agriculture generated recurrent demands to adjust mediating capacity; together with wider social conditions, particularly the circulation of relevant knowledge, these demands contributed to the technological flexibility observed in the rural water management system. These findings suggest that the material and operational characteristics of wetland rice agriculture can shape distinctive path-dependent trajectories and that agricultural context deserves greater attention in archaeological studies of technological change.