Kurt Rademaker
  • Associate Professor
  • Director, Center for the Study of the First Americans Laboratory
Research Areas
  • Archaeology

Courses Taught

  • ANTH 202- Introduction to Archaeology
  • ANTH 461- Environmental Archaeology
  • ANTH 489- Special Topics in Anthropology: South American Archaeology

Current Research Projects:

  • Early Human Ecology and Settlement Dynamics of the Central Andean Highlands (National Science Foundation)
  • Did Prehistoric Hunters of the High Andes Target Ice Age Megafauna 13,000 Years Ago? (Elfrieda Frank Foundation)

Currently seeking highly motivated graduate students to join the Paleo Andes team and the Center for the Study of the First Americans. Contact Dr. Rademaker at rademaker@tamu.edu ahead of applying to the TAMU grad program.

Research Interests

  • settlement of the Americas
  • environmental archaeology
  • hunter-gatherers
  • historical ecology
  • lithic technology and provenance
  • geographic information systems

Educational Background

  • PhD in Quaternary Archaeology, University of Maine, 2012

Selected Publications

  • (+ indicates graduate student co-author)

    Pitblado, B. and K. Rademaker, 2024, in press. The earliest peopling of the Rocky and Andes Mountains. In The Oxford Handbook of Mountain Archaeology, edited by F. Carrer, M. Callanan, P. della Casa, F. Fontana, S. Reinholds and H. Saul. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197608005.001.0001

    Rademaker, K., 2024, in press. Updated Peru archaeological radiocarbon database, 20,000-7000 14C BP Quaternary International. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2024.01.012

    Meinekat, S., +E.B.P. Milton, B. Furlotte, S. Zarrillo, and K. Rademaker, 2023. Fire as high-elevation cold adaptation: An evaluation of fuels and Terminal Pleistocene combustion in the central Andes. Quaternary Science Reviews 316: 108244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108244

    Milton, E.B.P., N. Stansell, H. Bocherens, A. Brownlee, D. Chala-Aldana, and K. Rademaker, 2022. Examining surface water δ18O and δ2H values in the western central Andes: A watershed moment for anthropological mobility studies. Journal of Archaeological Science 146: 10565. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2022.105655

    Rademaker, K., M.D. Glascock, D.A. Reid, E. Zuñiga, and G.R.M. Bromley, 2022. Comprehensive mapping and compositional analysis of the Alca obsidian source, Peru. Quaternary International 619: 56-71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2021.11.029

    Meinekat, S., C. Miller, and K. Rademaker, 2021. A site formation model for Cuncaicha rock shelter: Depositional and post-depositional processes at the high-altitude keysite in the Peruvian Andes. Geoarchaeology 37: 304–331. https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21889

    Kocher, A. et al., 2021. Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution. Science 374: 182–188. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abi5658

    Posth, C. et al. 2018. Reconstructing the deep population history of Central and South America. Cell 175: 1185-1197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.10.027

    Rademaker, K., G. Hodgins, K. Moore, S. Zarrillo, C. Miller, G.R.M. Bromley, P. Leach, D.A. Reid, W. Yépez Álvarez, and D.H. Sandweiss, 2014. Paleoindian settlement of the high-altitude Peruvian Andes. Science 346: 466-469. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1258260 

    Bromley, G.R.M., A.E. Putnam, K.M. Rademaker, T.V. Lowell, J.M. Schaefer, B.L. Hall, G. Winckler, S. Birkel, and H. Borns, 2014. Younger Dryas deglaciation of Scotland driven by warming summers.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(17): 6215-6219. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1321122111