Zoroaster was the founder of Zoroastrianism. He lived in what for his people were prehistoric times. There is evidence to suggest that he flourished when the Stone Age was giving away for Iranians to the Bronze Age that is possibly about 1400 and 1200 BC.
He is credited with the authorship of the Yasna Haptanghaiti as well as the Gathas, hymns of Zoroaster which are at the liturgical core of Zoroastrian thinking. Most of his life is known through the Zoroastrian texts.
The linguistic evidence shows that his home must have been among the Iranian of the north-east, and it is probable that his own people settled eventually in Khwarezmia, the land along the lower course of the Oxus.
Zoroastrianism, in its own right it was the state religion of three great Iranian empires (Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian empires) which flourished almost continually from the sixth century BC to the seventh century AC and dominated much of the Near and Middle East.
Toward the end of 2nd millennium BC, the Iranian tribes moved south off the steppes and gradually conquered and settled the land which later called Iran, Eastern Iranians evidently carried Zoroastrianism with them and eventually western Iranians i.e. Medes and Persian also adopted the faith.
It became the religion of the Achaemenians, whose empire was the greatest in the ancient world.
History of Zoroastrianism
