Kurt Rademaker

Kurt Rademaker is an Associate Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University's Department of Anthropology. His research focuses on the peopling of the Americas, environmental archaeology, and hunter-gatherer adaptations in high-altitude Andean environments. He leads the Paleo Andes team and directs projects funded by the National Science Foundation and the Elfrieda Frank Foundation.

Education: PhD in Quaternary Archaeology from the University of Maine (2012).

Research Interests:

• Early human settlement of the Andes and Rocky Mountains
• High-altitude adaptation strategies
• Lithic technology and obsidian sourcing
• Fire use and environmental interactions
• Pre-Columbian mobility and trade networks

Recent Projects: Investigating Pleistocene megafauna interactions, radiocarbon chronology databases, and isotopic studies of water resources in the Andes. Current work emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches combining archaeology, geology, and genomics.

Grants & Awards: NSF funding for Andean highland settlement studies (2024), Elfrieda Frank Foundation grant (2023).

Labs/Teams: Directs the Center for the Study of the First Americans and leads the Paleo Andes research group, collaborating internationally on high-altitude archaeological sites like Cuncaicha rock shelter.