Richard Shutler
Died peacefully on the evening of June 28th in the arms of his wife Jamie at St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver after having had a stroke the same morning. Richard is survived by his second wife Jamie Evrard, his first wife Mary Elizabeth "Betty" Shutler with whom he had three children, sons John Hall and Richard Burnett, grand daughter Tessa Marie Hoplin (James), and sister Muriel Ericson (Roger) and predeceased by his daughter Kathryn Allice.
A happy man who deeply loved and was loved by his family and friends, Richard had a generous, collegial temperament and wide ranging interests in the field of archaeology and way beyond. Having spent over fifty years in the field, Richard seems to have lived many lives. Born in 1921 in Longmont Colorado, he attended Salinas Jr. College, then inspired by the exploits of the famous paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews in the Gobi desert he went on to get an AB and and MA in anthropology at U of California, Berkeley followed by a Ph.D. from U of Arizona in 1961. His education was interrupted by a stint in the Aleutian Islands as a diesel mechanic with the US Army during the second world war.
Richard married Mary Elizabeth Hall in 1951 and soon after they went off to New Caledonia with E.W. Gifford, a legendary California archaeologist. Soon after Richard became intensely interested in a pottery type that had begun to appear in some of the islands of the Pacific. This pottery, later dubbed "Lapita", became perhaps the foremost tool that archaeologists use in tracing man's early dispersal into the Pacific. Richard also did extensive archaeological work in the American Great Basin, Hawaii, the Philippines where he married his second wife Jamie Evrard, an artist whom he had met in Iowa in 1979, Vanuatu, the Gilbert Islands, Tubuai, Fefan Island, Truk, Fiji, China and most recently, Tonga. In 2005 the French Government feted Richard in Noumea, New Caledonia on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Lapita pottery on that island. Two books were produced in his honour and archaeologists came from around the world to give papers in celebration of Richard's long career in Pacific archaeology. Richard maintained an office at 51猎奇入口 until he died.
Richard had many interests outside of archaeology and especially enjoyed travelling to Italy with Jamie, buying and restoring a villa there, and collecting fresh figs. Richard loved expeditions, anything yellow, the opera, the novels of Joseph Conrad and Somerset Maugham, mango pudding, the paintings of Camille Pissarro and Picasso's huge steel sculptures, secret pockets in travel clothing, the Oakland Raiders, Beethoven's symphonies, chocolate milk shakes, Tiger Woods, and his gigantic and devoted cat Boodles.