PROVIDENCE � Such is the archaeology of play: A battered gray toy tow truck. The rusted wheels of an iron roller skate. A crimped aluminum plate with a painted swan. These are remnants of children�s lives...

PROVIDENCE � Such is the archaeology of play:� The rusted wheels of an iron roller skate. A battered gray toy tow truck. A crimped aluminum plate with a painted swan.

These are remnants of children�s lives between 1885 and 1979 discovered on the grounds of the former Rhode Island State Home and School, later renamed the O�Rourke Children�s Center. Thousands of children revolved through the state�s first orphanage on the eastern end of what is now the Rhode Island College campus.

�This is where we found a toy soldier,� says E. Pierre Morenon, RIC archeology professor, as he digs his toe into the ground behind the Yellow Cottage, a former children�s residence and the last remaining wooden building still standing. Two other buildings, the Superintendent�s Home and the Boiler Room (now RIC�s Forman Center), still exist on the campus.

�We also found marbles � they�re ubiquitous,�

Morenon says as he leads a reporter through brambles and thicket that cover a formerly open, rolling landscape that �was once more like a park � it was a hotbed of play.� Play outside the cottages, in the hayfield, behind the old school.

Here and there, they found marbles and more marbles made of battered clay and glass, dinged and broken. �They got a lot of use. They�re portable,� and the ground on which they are played �is a great equalizer.�

Morenon led students and faculty on fieldwork on the property for a decade as part of the Rhode Island State Home and School Project; (www.ric.edu/statehomeandschool/current.html) an effort that includes oral histories, artifacts, video and an exhaustive compilation of records from state files.

He is writing a book about the archaeological findings that focuses in part on �playthings, possessions, exchange and community interactions.� Meanwhile, he may resume a field project at the site next year.

�For me, there�s a lot of meaning attached to objects. I tend as an archaeologist to think that they are not just functional things, but part of a child�s life,� Morenon says.

Some research reveals sadness and tragedy � �the tough side of life,� Morenon says. �But the toys don�t lie. They [the young residents] played with them for sure. And then discarded them.�

Dozens of boxes containing bagged and encapsulated artifacts line Morenon�s office shelves. Coal and slag used for fuel. Ice tongs, for ice-cutting by the pond. Bits of buttons. Little purses.

�Some of the reason we found artifacts is because if they [the children] were playing with something, they�d hide it,� says Morenon. �We found toy guns and bits and pieces of roller skates. I found one gun fragment sitting in the crotch of a tree.�

A 1946 Tootsie Toy Truck � complete with winch � remains one of Morenon�s favorite discoveries. Another is the grayish, bent aluminum plate with the hand-painted swan. �It was some child�s craft project. I just think it�s such a beautiful thing ��

�Those are the ubiquitous toys. These kids didn�t own their own toys. They were at an institution. They didn�t even own their own clothes. Their clothes were put out for them every day.�

Morenon credits 2001 articles by former Journal staff writer Laura Meade Kirk with heightening public awareness of the former Rhode Island State Home and School.

One article featured research by the late Richard Hillman, a former supervisor at the Department of Children, Youth and Families. Hillman had been hired by Trinity Repertory Company to research the orphanage for its production of �The Cider House Rules� � set in a fictional Maine orphanage. A second article focused on the unsolved mystery surrounding the bodies of six children who died at the home and whose gravesites are now unknown.

�Here was a state institution that was literally the backyard of this campus. How do we lose sight of that?� Morenon said. He recalled Hillman saying that �the college should take responsibility for the property it acquired.�

�A whole bunch of us got involved and worked on this for a decade. One of our goals was to save the Yellow Cottage. We did that. Another goal was to make it known that there was a place here. We put up a monument. We had a goal of interviewing [former residents] and telling their stories, and we did that.�

He steered some of his interviews with former residents to the topic of play.

�Sometimes they don�t really talk much about the particular toy. They just talk about their memories about play � about what they did. It kindles a conversation about things other than work or punishment.

�I had an interview once; I was talking to the guy and he had a little scar on his forehead. I said to him, �How�d you get that scar?� And he told me this story:

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�Well, we were playing baseball over at the State Home. I was the catcher. We didn�t have a bat � we had a two-by-four. The two-by-four had a nail in it. He [the batter] swung back � he hit me with a bat. The nail stuck in my forehead. I ran down to the medical station with the bat hanging from my head.�

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Such is the archaeology of toys. Such is the anthropology of children.

�These toys were meant to be unburied,� says Morenon. �This story needed to be told.�

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