Archeologists Accused of Artifact Theft in Columbia County

DAYTON – Three out-of-state, professional archeologists were charged last week in Columbia County Superior Court with theft of prehistoric artifacts from the Umatilla National Forest and Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness in 2013.

Richard Lee Lyman, 64, is a professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Missouri and holds a doctorate of anthropology from the University of Washington.

Lyman was arraigned on Wednesday, July 22, on charges of second-degree theft and second-degree malicious mischief, both class C felonies, and making false or misleading statements to a public servant, a gross misdemeanor. These charges are based on a United States Forest Service investigation.

Dave N. Schmitt, 55, works as a research affiliate in the anthropology department at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He was previously an archeologist for the Desert Research Institute based out of Reno, Nevada, and a research associate with the department of anthropology at Washington State University.

Matthew T. Boulanger, 38, is a doctoral candidate in the department of anthropology and a senior research specialist at the archaeometry laboratory at the University of Missouri. He was a staff archeologist at Archeological Consulting Team from 2000 to 2005; in 2012 he was a field instructor for the Law Enforcement Training Institute at the University of Missouri.

Schmitt and Boulanger were both charged with second-degree theft and second-degree malicious mischief, class C felonies. All three men pleaded not guilty to their charges.

No arrests have been made, and none of the defendants appeared in court last week, each having made arrangements for their Walla Walla-area attorneys to appear for them or to appear via phone.

Ordinarily the U.S. Attorney prosecutes cases filed by the U.S. Forest Service. This case had been accepted but was later declined, in May 2014, because of a lack of resources, according to court documents. It was subsequently referred to Columbia County, where the alleged crimes were committed.

Lyman, Schmitt and Boulanger are reportedly in violation of the Archeological Resource Protection Act. The researchers requested permission to survey certain portions of the national forest in Columbia County in 2013, according to the investigating officer. These lands are recognized as Nez Perce tribal-ceded lands and usual and accustomed areas of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indians.

The archeologists did not have permission, court documents allege, to remove any artifacts or do any digging or other work beyond reconnaissance. Investigations into the activities of this group, which included other associates as well as local guides, found that they had removed and transported to Missouri over 93 artifacts from seven sites in the Umatilla National Forest, court documents state.

Artifacts taken included such items as obsidian fragments, projectile point fragments, flakes of rock and the base of what was likely a knife, according to the investigator. These items were described and reported as being collected, court documents allege, in a report written by the three men and published as “Archeological Reconnaissance of Selected Areas in the Umatilla National Forest and Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness of Southeastern Washington State.”

This report states: “No excavation of any kind was done. Collection of artifacts was minimal, but it was deemed prudent to collect specimens when they were found to be readily visible to, and thus in jeopardy of being removed by, users of the trails and camping areas in the wilderness area…

“Although collected without a formal ARPA permit, our interpretation of that law and the imminent jeopardy of the collected materials indicate that the best course of action with respect to protecting the cultural resources was to collect them. All collected materials were delivered to USDA Forest Service, Umatilla National Forest, Pomeroy Ranger Station.”

The USFS report confirms that the artifacts were returned, but only after receipt of a certified letter from the district ranger. Archeologists employed by the forest service indicated the artifacts were not likely in jeopardy, as the defendants claim, as they were “not just arrowheads, but also lithic debitage, the byproducts of tool making that a layperson would probably not immediately recognize, and are important contextually in an archeological and anthropological sense,” according to the report.