In the preface to Cult Archaeology & Creationism, the editors explain "[t]he articles in this book are concerned with pseudoscientific beliefs about the human past. They are not primarily concerned with showing how and why these beliefs are wrong. ... Instead, this book is concerned primarily with two tasks relatively neglected by the scientific community: understanding these beliefs and dealing with them." Contributors include Kenneth L. Feder, Alice B. Kehoe, Laurie Godfrey and John Cole, and Bernard Ortiz de Montellano. The reviewer for American Antiquity described the first edition as "Now needed more than ever. ... A very useful book."