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European travelers all around the world are familiar with the cultural shocks they suffer and produce. They also know what is usually the main difference with other cultures. It is the independent, self-assertive European woman that distinguishes the European culture from most others in the globe. Actually, it is not now that these women are more independent. They have not gained independence during the last millennia, but have almost completely lost it. European women were not merely independent in the past. They seem to have enjoyed a remarkable high status. They were practically in command. Some ten thousand years ago many tribes started to invade Europe from the East. They were the Aryans or Indo-Europeans. They brought with them their farming know-how and their languages-originating most of the tongues today spoken in the continent-French, German, Spanish, English, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Romanian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and the Scandinavian and the Slavic tongues. The Aryans met a vast array of tribes in Europe-the Oldest Europeans-the descendants of a few female structured families that managed to survive the coldest episode of the Ice Age. They exhibited a notable cultural diversity. These Oldest Europeans had a most important and distinctive trait. It sharply separated them from the invading Indo-Europeans. It was what distinguished them-the only one common cultural mark among all the Oldest Europeans-their women. This book describes some of those Oldest European cultures. Also the cultural crash produced when they met the invading Indo-Europeans, who suppressed women's rights. All that has forged the European soul. It is deeply influencing the present world. Book jacket.