Karl Butzer Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Butzer died on May 4, 2016 in Austin, Texas at the age of 81.

At the University of Wisconsin (1960-66), Butzer regularly offered a course on Pleistocene environments, including what is now called geoarchaeology, in addition to introductory physical geography, and graduate seminars in climatology and coastal geomorphology. At the University of Chicago (1966-84), he taught advanced courses in physical geography, applied geomorphology, and environmental archaeology, as well as graduate seminars in settlement archaeology and geography. At the ETH-Zurich (1981-82), he introduced a new program in human geography, which continued to be implemented after his departure. At the University of Texas (since 1984), he offered graduate courses in geoarchaeology and environmental history; cultural ecology; historical geography; and landscape, society, and meaning. In 2005 he received an Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award of the University of Texas. He has had 30 Ph.D.’s (9 of them women) and 16 M.A.’s (7 women), at Wisconsin, Chicago, and Texas.

From 1959 through 1966 he taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. This was followed by a stint at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. Next, he taught at the University of Chicago until 1984. After that, he went to the Department of Geography and the Environment at University of Texas at Austin.

Karl W. Butzer (August 19, 1934 – May 4, 2016) was a German-born American geographer, ecologist, and archaeologist. He received two degrees at McGill University, Montreal: the B.Sc. (hons) in Mathematics in 1954 and later his master’s degree in Meteorology and Geography. Afterwards in the 1950s he returned to Germany to the University of Bonn to obtain a doctorate in physical geography. He obtained a master’s degree in Meteorology and Geography from McGill University and a doctorate in physical geography from the University of Bonn in Germany.

Butzer was born in 1934 in Mülheim to a Catholic Family. In 1937 as a young child his family fled Germany for England and later during World War II, they moved to Canada. While he was still a child, his family emigrated, first to England, and then to Canada.