His dissertation focused on the archaeology and probate records from eighteenth-century Annapolis, Maryland and he described the development of modern behavior during early capitalism.
[1] Shackel began his teaching career as an Adjunct Instructor, Department of Social Sciences, Suffolk Community College.
During the summers of 1983 and 1984, he led a team of students in an archaeological excavation to locate the homestead of the founder of the Town of Islip, on Long Island.
In 2002 he helped to initiate a long-term archaeology project at New Philadelphia, Illinois, a multi-racial town that was founded by a freed African American in 1836.
In 2014 a bill passed in the U.S. Senate and the United States House of Representatives to perform a Special Resource Study to determine the feasibility of making New Philadelphia a National Park.
Since 2015, archaeology, preservation, and heritage research has been conducted at Eckley Miners' Village, which is overseen by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
While the northeastern Pennsylvania immigrant story is not well-known, it is rich and complex, like many Rust Belt communities undergoing this major demographic shift.