The hypotheses of the Kármán-Donnell theory of thin shells with large deflections and the Boltzmann laws for isotropic linear, viscoelastic materials, the constitutive equations of shallow shells are first derived. Then the governing equations for the deflection equations of elastic thin plates. Introducing proper assumptions, an approximate theory for viscoelastic cylindrical shells under axial pressures can be obtained. Finally, the dynamical behavior is studied in detail by using several numerical methods. Dynamical properties,such as, hyperchaos , chaos, strange attractor, limit cycle etc., are discovered.