Layer by layer
How do archaeologists know what order things happened in the past? And what are strata? Look inside an archaeological dig to find out how layers (strata) can help us to build a story from the history hidden underground.
Then take inspiration from archaeology and stratigraphy, and follow our recipe to bake a delicious layered chocolate, vanilla and caramel cake!
Stratigraphy noun
a vertical section through the earth showing the relative positions of the human artefacts and therefore the chronology of successive levels of occupation
Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
Stratigraphy is a useful tool to help archaeologists decide the order of when different people were using a particular place. Over time, different layers of soil build up, and some of them contain things people left behind or dropped.
Here are our top 8 facts to break it down:
1. Underground time capsules: digging down is like going back in time. The stuff found in the deeper soil layers is usually older than what's closer to the top. It's like a stacked history book!
2. Where things are matters: finding an old toy in a certain layer tells us when that kind of toy might have been around at that place. It's a clue about the past!
3. Older vs. exact age: looking at the layers tells us if something is older or younger than something else. Deeper layers are older than the ones above them but testing stuff from the layers gives us the actual ‘birthday’ of things! We need both to tell a full story.
4. Finding real dates: scientists can test things found in different layers, like burnt wood, to find out exactly how old they are. This helps us put dates on our underground history book!
5. Changing the world: by looking at the dirt and layers, we can sometimes see how the land changed over time and how people lived with those changes long ago.
6. How sites get messy: sometimes, nature messes up the layers with floods or wind, and people also dig and build. Archaeologists have to be like detectives to figure out what happened.
7. Messy layers tell stories too: sometimes, we see a strange cut through the layers, or a different kind of soil going through the normal layers. This means people came along later and changed things. It could be from digging a hole or building a wall.
8. What people did: some layers are full of ash from old fires, others are like old floors where people walked, and some are like ancient rubbish bins! These tell us what people were doing.
Scroll down to explore an example archaeological site!
1. Top soil: grass pasture
2. Soil built up over the years: in this layer are Victorian pennies, a 1797 cartwheel penny, broken 18th century pottery sherds and rusty iron nails.
3. Soil built up over the years: this layer contains mainly 16th and 17th century pottery, with some medieval pottery.
4. Soil with no finds
5. Different layers of soil have built up inside this large pit
6. Dark soil containing a lot of butchered sheep bones
7. Sandy soil containing sheep and cattle bones
8. Dark soil containing the skeleton of a goose. Sherds of a 13th century pitcher
9. A grave: there is a complete skeleton of young male, estimated to have been about 16-24 years old when he died.
10. The remains of two walls made of local stone. Earth mortar was holding them together
11. A small Roman pot was found in here. It contained six 4th century CE Roman coins
12. Soil containing Roman roof tiles, pottery and animal bones
13. This compacted layer contains many fragments of mosaic
14. Earth was packed against the stone to make a strong foundation for the walls
15. Two narrow holes, containing traces of charcoal and Iron Age pottery
16. Natural clay layer
Bake a layered chocolate, vanilla and caramel strata cake!
This fun (and delicious!) cake makes a perfect weekend baking project, and contains a great layered surprise when you cut into it!
Serves: 16-20
Takes: 1 hour 55 minutes, plus cooling and resting
You will need...
For the sponges:
325g unsalted butter, very soft
325g caster sugar
5 medium free-range eggs, at room temperature
165g self-raising flour
150g self-raising flour mixed with 15g cocoa powder in a separate bowl
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
For the caramel buttercream:
400g unsalted butter, very soft
400g icing sugar
400g thick salted caramel sauce or spread from a jar or tin
To decorate:
Green food colouring
120g mix of chocolate coated fruit and nuts, roughly chopped
3 bourbon biscuits, quite finely chopped
15g Maltesers, some cut in half
1 Crunchie bar, chopped into large chunks
2 Oreos, blitzed to fine crumbs in a food processor
3 x 114g packs chocolate fingers
You will also need:
Two 20cm x 4.5cm square cake tins, lightly oiled and base-lined with non-stick baking paper
A piping bag fitted with a star or ‘grass’ nozzle (Wilton #233)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. To make the sponges, put the butter and sugar into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric whisk for 3-4 minutes, until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well between each egg (make sure they’re at room temperature before starting to prevent your mixture from curdling). Stir in a large pinch of salt.
2. Once the eggs are all mixed in, transfer half the mixture (460-470g) into a second bowl. Fold the flour and cocoa powder mix into one of the bowls, and the rest of the flour, along with the vanilla extract, into the other. Finally, fold a tablespoon of milk into each. Now you have one chocolate batter and one vanilla batter.
3. Transfer each mixture into its own cake tin, carefully level the tops with a spatula and bake for 25-30 minutes until risen and golden, and a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean.
4. Remove the cakes from the oven and leave them to cool for 10 minutes. Turn the sponges out onto a wire rack, peel off the baking paper and leave them to cool completely.
5. Once the sponges are cool, make the buttercream. Put the butter into a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric whisk for 5-6 minutes, until it is fluffy and almost white in colour. Beat in the icing sugar in 3 additions, starting slowly so the sugar doesn’t fly away, then speeding up until it is mixed in well. Once all the sugar is added and the buttercream is smooth, beat in the caramel sauce until everything is combined.
6. Slice the sponges carefully in half horizontally to make four separate cakes. Spread a little icing in the middle of a serving plate or cake board, then stick one chocolate sponge half to it, cut side up.
7. Spread the cake half with a generous layer of icing and scatter a third of the chopped fruit, nuts and biscuit chunks evenly over the icing. Then add a vanilla sponge half, cut side down.
8. Repeat step 7, alternating the sponge flavours, until you finish with the second vanilla half, cut side down.
9. Spread a thin layer of icing over the whole cake using a palette knife, making it as smooth as possible, then pop it in the fridge for 30 minutes. This is called a crumb coat, and it will keep the top coating of icing neat and free of cake crumbs. Cover the remaining buttercream and keep it at room temperature while the cake is chilling.
10. Once the crumb coat has firmed up in the fridge, use the remaining icing (reserving 3 tbsp) to cover the cake completely, smoothing it down as best you can. Chill again for 10 minutes.
11. Mix the reserved icing with a little green food colouring in a small bowl until it is a grass green colour. Transfer it into the piping bag.
12. To decorate the cake, pipe small clumps of grass here and there on the top and around the edges, then add Maltesers and Crunchie rocks and boulders, and finally small mounds of Oreo ‘topsoil’. Line the chocolate fingers up around the base to create a fence, then allow to stand somewhere cool for 2-3 hours before slicing and serving.
Over to you!
We enjoyed baking this delicious cake, and would love to see your creations! Share them with us on social media @englishheritage or email them to kids@english-heritage.org.uk
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