Book excerpt: "The evidence presented here challenges the conventional datings of Zarathustra (c. 630 B.C., c. 1500-1200 B.C.). It also counters the widely held view that the change from hunting and gathering to farming must be tied to the economics of survival. But if there is any truth in the ancient claims, two of the great puzzles of prehistory - the massive late-seventh-millennium spread of agriculture and the placement in time of one of the world's most influential religious leaders - could be resolved as one."--BOOK JACKET.