Michel Fortin

Michel Fortin among Canada’s leading figures in archeology and has made important contributions to Université Laval’s programs in the field. He has also marked archeology with new approaches to excavation and the analysis of materials.

An academic in action

Professor Fortin has been a brilliant undergraduate and graduate teacher in the University’s archeology programs throughout his career.  He has supervised graduate students from Université Laval and other Canadian universities in the field, giving them access to newly discovered material from his excavations. He has trained multiple generations of young researchers.

He has been a pioneering figure in archeology at Université Laval and partnered with the City of Québec to establish a field school for experiential learning, as archeology programs prefer. He also led the program development committees and drafted the documents that led to today’s archeology programs, while finding time to publish a textbook on excavation techniques.

After heading up the administrative process to create the new archeology programs, he directed them for 11 years. He then served two terms as head of the Department of History, which got its name under his leadership.

And Michel Fortin didn’t give up his leading role in departmental projects when he retired either. He took on the task of organizing the relocation of Université Laval’s archeology laboratories, Canada’s largest. Note that he previously collaborated in establishing the laboratories with funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

An expert of renown

As a researcher, Professor Fortin developed new approaches to field and laboratory archeology that attracted significant financial support from Canadian granting agencies. He improved excavation processes by bringing in methods from geomatics. He also used analytical techniques from archaeometry to study the composition of materials from archeological sites.

His work has been the subject of numerous publications, papers, and lectures. Most have appeared outside the country. Michel Fortin published texts on Cypriot antiquities brought back from excavations in Cyprus conducted by Université Laval in the 1970s as part of an international series. He recently published a book of over 700 pages on his various archaeological campaigns in Syria.

Between 1985 and 2011 he was able to get excavation permits from the Syrian government for three archaeological sites and one survey permit before access to the country was cut off for political reasons. Using his professional ties with Syria, negotiated the loan of 385 artifacts for an international exhibition, Syria, Land of Civilizations, which he curated and wrote the catalogue for.

Professor Fortin has served as scientific advisor to other major archeology exhibitions for the general public. He worked on Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology, an exhibition sponsored by the National Geographic Society. He also collaborated on the exhibition Investigating Agatha Christie. Not only did she feature Near Eastern archeology in some of her best-known novels, she went so far as to marry the great British archaeologist Max Mallowan, who Michel Fortin met during his doctoral studies at the UCL (University College London) Institute of Archaeology.

His work and reputation are long established. His research gave him an in with the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies. He was a board member there for his entire career, served as editor of the journal for a decade, and for four years was its president. He was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada in 2014 for his achievements in research.