When Zarathushtra Spoke

 

"Ancient Greek and Roman historians ventured very few absolute dates in recounting events of great age, and yet several of them - Pliny, Eudoxus, Xanthus, Plutarch specifically gave dates ranging from 6500 B.C. to 6200 B.C. for the time of Zarathushtra (Greek Zoroaster), the legendary Iranian prophet whose missionary-borne message was said to have reached far beyond his native land. Until recently these ancient, almost mythic claims could neither be proved nor disproved, but advances in archaeological techniques now clearly reveal the presence of a transformative cultural impulse sweeping over Iran, Iraq, and even into southeast Europe in the last half of seventh millenium B.C. Characterized by extraordinarily fine ceramics painted with dark-light geometric designs, this cultural reformation accompanied the founding of a multitude of new agricultural settlements from Turkmenistan to Greece between 6500 and 6000 B.C., the final phase of the "Neolithic Revolution." A thorough comparison of the archaeology of this period with texts from the Zoroastrian tradition - texts that emphasize the essential role of farming in the religious life ("He who cultivates grain cultivates righteousness") --- suggests that the moving force behind this sudden and irrevocable diffusion of the agricultural way of life was indeed the prophet Zarathushtra, living at precisely the time in which he was placed by the Greek and Roman historians of antiquity..." 

Excerpt from "When Zarathushtra Spoke", written by archeaologist Mary Settegast (printed by Mazda Publishers, Costa Mesa, California, 2005)