The year is 1965. An abandoned alien base is discovered under the sands of northern Africa. Amazingly, the machinery in it is still functional after seemingly millennia, but exactly what the exotic gear does, no one knows. Until, that is, an experiment to test it goes wrong and an entire middle school in Ohio is suddenly transported 30,000 years into the past. For some 300 teenagers caught unexpectedly by the disaster, survival becomes a day-by-day struggle in a world without grocery stores, hospitals, electricity, plumbing, or any of a thousand other things taken for granted in modern civilization. Even though he is unaware of it, one boy literally holds the key to resolving the mystery of how it happened and perhaps even going home. Meanwhile, the Biology teacher finds himself the unelected leader of the colony whether he wants the job or not, and the lives of hundreds of people now depend on him. Between the two of them, they might be able to hold off the oncoming catastrophe, but others see nothing but opportunity in a prehistoric world in which laws and police are unknown. It will take courage and intelligence to live very long in this savage new land - and perhaps a little help from the stars.