An improved procedure for preparing a pollen concentrate from clayey sediments is presented. Two new steps have been added compared with earlier procedures. Firstly an initial dispersion which enhances the pollen yield from a sample so that a smaller amount of material is required for the separation, and secondly, the use of CsCl for sequential density separation which results in high purity pollen concentrates. Our separation technique was tested through radiocarbon dating a sediment sequence from Old Uppsala, central Sweden.