Rudy Fecteau, MA, has been engaged in archaeobotanical research in Canada since 1976. His education includes an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Toronto in 1972 and an M.A. in Historical Geography from York University in 1985. Over the past 45 years Rudy has completed over three hundred reports describing plant remains from more than 330 sites that include pre-contact, 18th, 19th and 20th Century Euro-Canadian and environmental sites from across Canada, Ohio, and New York State.
Rudy's career in archaeology began in 1972 working for various government agencies in Ontario. He first studied plant remains from archaeology soils under the guidance of Dr. ‘Jock’ McAndrews at the Botany Department, Royal Ontario Museum in 1976 and was an associate there until 1985. Recently, he has been appointed as Visiting Scholar in the McMaster Paleoethnobotanical Research Facility, Department of Archaeology, McMaster U in Hamilton, and he has been mentoring students from various Ontario universities.
Rudy is a member of the Association of Professional Archaeologists and a life member of the Ontario Archaeological Society, and has contributed to conferences of the Society of American Archaeology, the Canadian Archaeological Association, Ontario Archaeological Society, Royal Botanical Gardens, and the Archaeology Research Associates CHAP symposia as well as providing in-person archaeobotanical lab workshops for the APA.
Since retiring from teaching in 2008, he has been able to concentrate more on analysis, report and article writing, academic and public presentations and a community outreach program, giving presentations to elementary, high school, university undergraduate and graduate classes, museums, community groups such as Rotary, Probus and MENSA, Ontario Archaeological Society chapters, and Ohio and New York State Archaeological Association chapters.
Rudy was the 2013 recipient of the J. Norman Emerson Silver Medal Award. This award is conferred on occasion by the Ontario Archaeological Society in recognition of contributions to the public understanding of archaeology. Rudy has also been involved with monitor/liaison training at Six Nations of the Grand River, the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Chippewa of the Thames First Nations. In 2017 he was invited to participate at Aboriginal Day celebrations at the Nippissing First Nation, and he has also given slide presentations at the Gathering at the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
Rudy is currently working on several archaeobotanical projects down in the ‘dungeon’ (his basement lab) in Greensville… and he really does plan to clean it up.
