ABSTRACT
Indeed, droughts are a factor of historic durability and because of their impacts on societies, they left multiple indicators in the archives of the last 500 years. In this presentation we will show how the combination of textual and instrumental data recorded in the archives since the 16th century can improve our knowledge of European droughts between 1500 and 1950. We will present results based on a specific method well adapted to the content of our sources. In this prospect, we study several cases in Britain, France, Jucar Basin, Upper Rhine valley and Syros in order to better understand the fluctuations of these climatic extreme events during the last 500 years and their social and economical impacts on European ancient societies.
