Richard (“Dick”) Shutler Jr. was an archaeologist who worked extensively in North America and the Pacific during his career.
World War II interrupted Shutler’s higher education. After enlisting in the US Army, Shutler spent the majority of his service (1942-1946) in the Aleutian Islands. After the war, Shutler earned his AB and MA at the University of California (Berkeley), and later his PhD at the University of Arizona in 1961. Shutler’s fieldwork focused primarily on North America until the late 1960s, although his first fieldwork in the Pacific took place in New Caledonia in 1951/2 with Edward Gifford and his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Shutler.
Dick Shutler excavated widely across the Pacific, including fieldwork in Vanuatu in 1963/4 and 1966/7, in Gilbert Islands in 1969, in Vanuatu in 1971, in the Philippines in 1976 and 1978, in Fefan Island in 1977, in Rotuma in 1981, in Hong Kong in 1990, and in Tubuai in 1994. Shutler was involved in fieldwork in Tonga throughout the 1990s.
Among his many academic appointments included serving as department chair at the University of Iowa and at Simon Fraser University. After resigning the chair at Simon Fraser University, he remained at the university with emeritus status to continue his research. He died in 2007, at age 86.