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In connection with early rats and also whether rats may have been carriers of the plague prior to the Dark Ages in Britain, it is well known that definite black rat bones have been found at a small number of Roman sites in Britain, including a rat skull from a mid third century deposit from Fenchurch St in London. There are, however, two problems attached to the identification of rat bones. One is to do with identification. To separate black from brown rat and from the water vole (similar in size to the black rat), you need the skull. In addition, the various postcranial parts overlap in size with the water vole and separation of vole from rat can sometimes be difficult. The second major problem is that rats do burrow, so maybe one bone isn't sufficient evidence that they were there. This being said, I did recently identify what I reckon must be a rat pelvis from a pre-Boudiccan deposit at another site in Fenchurch Street (site FEH95, forthcoming MoLAS report), which was clearly quite different from the water vole pelvis shown in Lawrence and Brown (1973. 199). Not being the size of a brown rat, and knowing that this species did not reach our shores until much much later, I can only assume that it must be a black rat. As for whether it is early, again I can only assume that its date is given by the associated stratigraphy. Lawrence, M J, and Brown, R W, 1973 (1967) Mammals of Britain: Their tracks, trails and signs, revised, London Kevin Rielly Archaeozoologist Museum of London Specialist Services Tel: 020 7566 9332 Fax: 020 7490 3955 [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> http://www.molss.org.uk -