Eastern WA man must relinquish 500-plus ancestral belongings to Nez Perce

Dec. 4, 2025 | 

Annette Cary Tri-City Herald 

Shannon Wheeler, chair of the Nez Perce Tribe, attends a meeting with tribal fishermen near Lapwai, Idaho February 18, 2025. (Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times) 

More than 500 Native American artifacts ancestral belongings believed to have been illegally taken from the Umatilla National Forest by an Eastern Washington resident will be turned over to the Nez Perce Tribe.

The items were found when a search warrant was served at the home of Shane Dee Caldwell, 39, of Asotin, Asotin County, about 20 miles from the national forest boundary.

An investigation began when a Washington state employee received a tip in June 2023 that Caldwell was digging up artifacts LOOTING in the northern part of the Umatilla National Forest at an archaeological site that may have been used as a camp along the Great Nez Perce Trail in the Blue Mountains.

The trail was a trade and travel network created as hundreds of Nez Perce men, women and children fled U.S. Army generals in 1877.

Will Marquardt, a Pomeroy Ranger District archaeologist, found seven “test pits” dug in a one-acre area in the national forest. Test pits are used to determine whether artifacts are in the area and whether more digging there would yield them.

He suspected that dirt from the pits had been taken away to be put through a screen elsewhere to look for artifacts, according to a court document.

The largest pit included the impression of a bucket in the loose dirt and a boot footprint.

Within days, a national forest law enforcement officer, Austin Hess, placed two trail cameras in the area, and Caldwell was photographed near the holes within hours. 

More cameras were set up and captured images of Caldwell near the deepest hole and using a hoe or  rake to retrieve a rock from a stream bed, and then doing more digging. 

A search warrant was served at Caldwell’s house in February, with almost all of the Native American artifacts ancestral belongings seized consistent with the type at the archaeological site where test pits were dug in the Umatilla National Forest. 

Also seized were maps of the Nez Perce and Umatilla national forests with areas known to have been used by Native Americans circled. 

Caldwell pleaded guilty to disturbing an archaeological resource in a national forest, a Class B misdemeanor. He was sentenced by U.S. Magistrate Judge Alexander Ekstrom to 15 months unsupervised probation and must relinquish the seized artifacts. He is barred from entering U.S. Forest Service land for a year, unless authorized by a federal official as part of his job duties.

Archaeologists estimate the restoration and repair of the area where Caldwell dug test pits will cost almost $6,000.

At Caldwell’s sentencing hearing Ekstrom said that “there has been, historically in the United States, a lack of respect for items that belong to First Nation folks, and it has been a blind spot in the United States for a long period of time” and acknowledged the frustration of tribes at continuing theft of items.

Caldwell apologized at the hearing, according to the Eastern Washington U.S. attorney’s office.

The 522 artifacts that will be restored to the Nez Perce Tribe will be taken care of according to traditional protocols, said Nakia Williamson, director of the Nez Perce Tribe Cultural Resource Program.

“As the original people of this Land, the Nez Perce community view this act as not only ‘disturbing archaeological resources’ within a National Forest, but also ignoring and undermining our basic humanity as a living culture, which is connected to the land and resources managed by the U.S. Forest Service,” she said. “These are not simply ‘resources’ to our community, but are a testament to our enduring connection to federally managed lands and a reminder of our collective responsibilities to take care of the land which provides for all of us.”