A comparison of two different mechanical separation procedures, a settling process and sieving process, was performed in the samples preparation for radiocarbon dating of archaeological lime mortars from the Tower Keep at Irulegi Castle (Navarre, Spain). The different fractions obtained by the two different mechanical separation procedures were converted to carbon dioxide by sequential dissolution in order to compare the yielded ¹⁴C ages. Fifteen AMS ¹⁴C measurements were performed from the lime mortars, as well as for a tooth and a charcoal fragment embedded in the mortar. Samples obtained by the settling process (grain-size window of 0.5–2 μm) led to more accurate radiocarbon results than samples obtained by sieving (grain-size window of 46–75 μm). The results point to Irulegi Castle existing during the 10th century as well as to the renovation of the castle defences and different repairs in the Tower Keep during the 13th and 14th centuries. Mineralogical characterization of samples was essential when discussing the radiocarbon dating results. For this end, petrographic microscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analyses and cathodoluminescence analyses were performed.

在来自Irulegi Castle（西班牙Navarre）的Tower Keep的考古石灰砂浆的放射性碳定年的样品制备中，对两种不同的机械分离程序（沉降过程和筛分过程）进行了比较。通过两种不同的机械分离步骤获得的不同馏分通过顺序溶解转化为二氧化碳，以比较产生的¹⁴ C年龄。十五个AMS ¹⁴用石灰灰浆以及嵌在灰浆中的牙齿和木炭碎片进行碳测量。通过沉降过程获得的样品（0.5–2μm的粒径窗口）比通过筛分获得的样品（46–75μm的粒径窗口）产生更准确的放射性碳结果。结果指向了10世纪存在的Irulegi城堡，以及13和14世纪城堡守卫的翻新和塔楼的各种维修。讨论放射性碳测年结果时，样品的矿物学表征至关重要。为此，进行了岩相显微镜，X射线衍射，热重分析和阴极发光分析。