Kurt Rademaker
Michigan State University, Anthropology, Faculty Member
- South American Archaeology, Paleoindians, Pleistocene, Glacial Geology, Obsidian, Lithic Technology, and 9 moreEnvironmental Archaeology, Quaternary Geology, Zooarchaeology, Paleoethnobotany, Geochemical Characterization of Obsidians, Paleoindian archaeology, South America (Archaeology), Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene, and Arqueología de la Puna Argentinaedit
- https://www.paleoandes.com/edit
Research Interests:
We compare occupation intensity among early forager archaeological sites of the Andean puna, a high-elevation grass- and shrub-land ecoregion spanning central Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile and Argentina. The earliest sites in the... more
We compare occupation intensity among early forager archaeological sites of the Andean puna, a high-elevation grass- and shrub-land ecoregion spanning central Peru, Bolivia, and northern Chile and Argentina. The earliest sites in the Andean puna were established in the Terminal Pleistocene, and by the Early Holocene hunter-gatherers were widespread. Despite the inherent challenges of high elevation, rapid and successful settlement of the puna was facilitated by favorable climatic conditions and similar resources throughout this “megapatch.” Forager sites in the Andean puna exhibit striking similarities in camp site locations, hunted animals, stone raw material acquisition, and plant resource use. Similarities in stone tool assemblages and projectile point styles suggest common activities and shared culture over vast, rugged landscapes. At a finer scale, forager sites in the Andean puna exhibit very different levels of occupation intensity and patterns of mobility. Some archaeologists interpret forager puna sites through a single, homogeneous evolutionary sequence of adaptation to high elevation. Using systematic comparisons, we show that differences in occupation intensity and mobility relate not to the constraints of elevation but to differences in primary productivity and congruity of critical resources in site habitats.
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We report new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) ages on faunal and human remains recovered from Cuncaicha shelter (4480 m elevation) in the high southern Peruvian Andes. Using a large number of precise radiometric ages available for the... more
We report new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) ages on faunal and human remains recovered from Cuncaicha shelter (4480 m elevation) in the high southern Peruvian Andes. Using a large number of precise radiometric ages available for the Cuncaicha sequence, we employ Bayesian modeling to determine how human burials relate to discrete episodes of site occupation. Hunter-gatherers used Cuncaicha rockshelter as a residential camp beginning in the Terminal Pleistocene, ~12,000 years ago. In the Early Holocene, the site additionally became a cemetery where hunter-gatherers, and later pastoralists, interred their dead. Episodes of occupation alternated with episodes of burial, indicating persistent human presence in the high-elevation Pucuncho Basin and the maintenance of symbolically special places. The chronological framework presented here is the foundation for our team’s ongoing interdisciplinary investigations of exploration and settlement in the Andes, one of the key world regions where humans have adapted to high elevation.
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A B S T R A C T Results from the recent excavations at the Cuncaicha rock shelter (4480 m above sea level) suggest a successful colonization of the Andean highlands by groups of foragers during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene.... more
A B S T R A C T Results from the recent excavations at the Cuncaicha rock shelter (4480 m above sea level) suggest a successful colonization of the Andean highlands by groups of foragers during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene. The discovery of Early and Late Holocene human remains buried in the site brings new opportunities to assess mobility and occupation strategies during this period. In this study, isotopic analysis of strontium (87 Sr /86 Sr) and oxygen (δ 18 O) in faunal and human dental enamel helped to identify the most likely areas where humans obtained food and consumed water during their formative years. Collection of modern plant and water samples also helped to define a reliable background for the mobility analysis within the study area. 87 Sr /86 Sr ratios and δ 18 O on dental enamel showed that Early Holocene humans lived within the Pucuncho Basin and obtained most of their resources from there. Isotopic analyses are an important step for modeling the mobility patterns of the Early Holocene occupants of Cuncaicha.
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Resolving patterns of tropical climate variability during and since the last glacial maximum (LGM) is fundamental to assessing the role of the tropics in global change, both on ice-age and sub-millennial timescales. Here, we present a 10... more
Resolving patterns of tropical climate variability during and since the last glacial maximum (LGM) is fundamental to assessing the role of the tropics in global change, both on ice-age and sub-millennial timescales. Here, we present a 10 Be moraine chronology from the Cordillera Carabaya (14.3 S), a sub-range of the Cordillera Oriental in southern Peru, covering the LGM and the first half of the last glacial termination. Additionally, we recalculate existing 10 Be ages using a new tropical high-altitude production rate in order to put our record into broader spatial context. Our results indicate that glaciers deposited a series of moraines during marine isotope stage 2, broadly synchronous with global glacier maxima, but that maximum glacier extent may have occurred prior to stage 2. Thereafter, atmospheric warming drove widespread deglaciation of the Cordillera Carabaya. A subsequent glacier resurgence culminated at ~16,100 yrs, followed by a second period of glacier recession. Together, the observed deglaciation corresponds to Heinrich Stadial 1 (HS1: ~18,000e14,600 yrs), during which pluvial lakes on the adjacent Peruvian-Bolivian altiplano rose to their highest levels of the late Pleistocene as a consequence of southward displacement of the inter-tropical convergence zone and intensification of the South Amer-ican summer monsoon. Deglaciation in the Cordillera Carabaya also coincided with the retreat of higher-latitude mountain glaciers in the Southern Hemisphere. Our findings suggest that HS1 was characterised by atmospheric warming and indicate that deglaciation of the southern Peruvian Andes was driven by rising temperatures, despite increased precipitation. Recalculated 10 Be data from other tropical Andean sites support this model. Finally, we suggest that the broadly uniform response during the LGM and termination of the glaciers examined here involved equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperature anomalies and propose a framework for testing the viability of this conceptual model.
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On April 21, 2012, the symposium “Early lithic technologies in South America: Beyond regional projectile point typologies” was held at the 77th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Memphis, Tennessee. Seven... more
On April 21, 2012, the symposium “Early lithic technologies in South America: Beyond regional projectile point typologies” was held at the 77th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Memphis, Tennessee. Seven articles presented in that symposium are gathered in this special issue of Chungara Revista de Antropología Chilena. Colored by the blues mood of the city and the magnificent smell of Memphis barbecue, it appeared from the start that this session had high aims. Early lithic technological studies in South America and elsewhere for years had been devoted to the description of attributes on specific formal tools and their relations in the axes of time and space. As such, the establishment of projectile point typologies using site provenience data has been a chief orientation in the analyses of the peopling of the Americas. However, these studies are geographically scattered, and currently there are few consistent discussions related to the reliability of specific tool types as temporal or cultural markers. This situation is aggravated by the fact that, contrary to North America, in South America the archaeological record from the Pleistocene to Holocene transition is characterized by apparent greater regional variability in lithic technology. No single projectile point type dominates the continent, most technologies are significant in a regional environmental scope, and many assemblages contain primarily informal short-lived tools. This South American characteristic has been elegantly articulated by Luis Borrero (2006) in his: “Paleoindians without Mammoths and Archaeologists without Projectile Points?” article. Thus far, the early peopling of South America appears as a more diversified process than that of North America, with a marked absence of pan-continental projectile point styles such as Clovis. A major question moving the participants of the session was: What does this greater technological variability signify?
New research from throughout South America prompts a review of existing data and a synthesis of new advances. The SAA session aimed to gather current research on the spatial distribution and chronological associations of early lithic assemblages, regional raw material selection and procurement practices, differential representation of reduction sequences/stages at sites, possible relationships between bifacial assemblages and other designs, and the roles of early lithic technologies in subsistence and settlement patterns. Speakers from different countries gathered in order to shed light on regional variability and to illustrate different methodological approaches. Each participant or group of participants presented their up-to-date syntheses of regional lithic technological research problems and ways in which they have worked to solve them.
The second major achievement was to collect the symposium contributions into this Chungara issue. In order to encourage greater interaction, papers have been written in English and Spanish, in order to promote dialogue among those working on lithic technological problems in South America, North America, and elsewhere. We acknowledge the commentaries of the two symposium discussants, Nora Franco and David Anderson, who have kindly agreed to contribute to this number.
The original impetus for the SAA session and this number has been creating venues for sharing current developments and thinking on the early peopling of South America. Gathering together researchers from a wide variety of places, disciplinary traditions, and experiences has been motivated by the idea of listening to each other and writing down our results. After all, those of us working on the early settlement of America are united by one of the colonized places on earth.
New research from throughout South America prompts a review of existing data and a synthesis of new advances. The SAA session aimed to gather current research on the spatial distribution and chronological associations of early lithic assemblages, regional raw material selection and procurement practices, differential representation of reduction sequences/stages at sites, possible relationships between bifacial assemblages and other designs, and the roles of early lithic technologies in subsistence and settlement patterns. Speakers from different countries gathered in order to shed light on regional variability and to illustrate different methodological approaches. Each participant or group of participants presented their up-to-date syntheses of regional lithic technological research problems and ways in which they have worked to solve them.
The second major achievement was to collect the symposium contributions into this Chungara issue. In order to encourage greater interaction, papers have been written in English and Spanish, in order to promote dialogue among those working on lithic technological problems in South America, North America, and elsewhere. We acknowledge the commentaries of the two symposium discussants, Nora Franco and David Anderson, who have kindly agreed to contribute to this number.
The original impetus for the SAA session and this number has been creating venues for sharing current developments and thinking on the early peopling of South America. Gathering together researchers from a wide variety of places, disciplinary traditions, and experiences has been motivated by the idea of listening to each other and writing down our results. After all, those of us working on the early settlement of America are united by one of the colonized places on earth.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Study of human adaptation to extreme environments is important for understanding our cultural and genetic capacity for survival. The Pucuncho Basin in the southern Peruvian Andes contains the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological... more
Study of human adaptation to extreme environments is important for understanding our cultural and genetic capacity for survival. The Pucuncho Basin in the southern Peruvian Andes contains the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological sites yet identified in the world, about 900 meters above confidently dated contemporary sites. The Pucuncho workshop site [4355 meters above sea level (masl)] includes two fishtail projectile points, which date to about 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago (ka). Cuncaicha rock shelter (4480 masl) has a robust,
well-preserved, and well-dated occupation sequence spanning the past 12.4 thousand years (ky), with 21 dates older than 11.5 ka. Our results demonstrate that despite cold temperatures
and low-oxygen conditions, hunter-gatherers colonized extreme high-altitude Andean environments in the Terminal Pleistocene, within about 2 ky of the initial entry of humans to South America.
well-preserved, and well-dated occupation sequence spanning the past 12.4 thousand years (ky), with 21 dates older than 11.5 ka. Our results demonstrate that despite cold temperatures
and low-oxygen conditions, hunter-gatherers colonized extreme high-altitude Andean environments in the Terminal Pleistocene, within about 2 ky of the initial entry of humans to South America.
Research Interests:
Study of human adaptation to extreme environments is important for understanding our cultural and genetic capacity for survival. The Pucuncho Basin in the southern Peruvian Andes contains the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological... more
Study of human adaptation to extreme environments is important for understanding our cultural and genetic capacity for survival. The Pucuncho Basin in the southern Peruvian Andes contains the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological sites yet identified in the world, about 900 meters above confidently dated contemporary sites. The Pucuncho workshop site [4355 meters above sea level (masl)] includes two fishtail projectile points, which date to about 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago (ka). Cuncaicha rock shelter (4480 masl) has a robust, well-preserved, and well-dated occupation sequence spanning the past 12.4 thousand years (ky), with 21 dates older than 11.5 ka. Our results demonstrate that despite cold temperatures and low-oxygen conditions, hunter-gatherers colonized extreme high-altitude Andean environments in the Terminal Pleistocene, within about 2 ky of the initial entry of humans to South America.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Zooarchaeology, Geoarchaeology, Settlement Patterns, Science, and 18 morePaleoecology, High altitude environments, Peru, Andes, Multidisciplinary, Paleoindians, Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene, South American Archaeology, Humans, South American Indians, High Altitude Human Adaptations, Natural Resource Ecology - Mountain Areas, High altitude Physiology, Artifacts, Paleoindian archaeology, Acclimatization, Altitude, and Archeology
Study of human adaptation to extreme environments is important for understanding our cultural and genetic capacity for survival. The Pucuncho Basin in the southern Peruvian Andes contains the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological... more
Study of human adaptation to extreme environments is important for understanding our cultural and genetic capacity for survival. The Pucuncho Basin in the southern Peruvian Andes contains the highest-altitude Pleistocene archaeological sites yet identified in the world, about 900 meters above confidently dated contemporary sites. The Pucuncho workshop site [4355 meters above sea level (masl)] includes two fishtail projectile points, which date to about 12.8 to 11.5 thousand years ago (ka). Cuncaicha rock shelter (4480 masl) has a robust, well-preserved, and well-dated occupation sequence spanning the past 12.4 thousand years (ky), with 21 dates older than 11.5 ka. Our results demonstrate that despite cold temperatures and low-oxygen conditions, hunter-gatherers colonized extreme high-altitude Andean environments in the Terminal Pleistocene, within about 2 ky of the initial entry of humans to South America.
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Research Interests:
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In this article we review what is currently known about the early occupation of the southern Peruvian coast and highlands. We focus our review on the Terminal Pleistocene sites of Quebrada Jaguay and Quebrada Tacahuay (coast) and Pucuncho... more
In this article we review what is currently known about the early occupation of the southern Peruvian coast and highlands. We focus our review on the Terminal Pleistocene sites of Quebrada Jaguay and Quebrada Tacahuay (coast) and Pucuncho (highlands), and we compare them with the few other sites known from this period. We cover chronology, settlement pattern, specialization, and the interregional connections during this first period of human settlement.