In the first few pages of their article (pp. 192–195), Wodak and Oldroyd gave extensive background information on: The International Society for Krishna Consciousness, of which the authors of Forbidden archeology are members (“a modern variant of the Bhakti sects that have dominated Hindu religious life over the last one and a half millennia”); the teachings of the movement’s founder, Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (“for Prabhupada, science gives no adequate account of the origin of the universe or of life”); the Bhaktivedanta Institute (they comment on “the boldness of its intellectual programme”); and Vedic chronology (“partial dissolutions, called pralaya, supposedly take place every 4.32 billion years, bringing catastrophes in which whole groups of living forms can disappear”). Wodak and Oldroyd also make many references to the Rg veda, vedanta, the Puranas, the atma, yoga, and karma.
In common with other reviewers, Wodak and Oldroyd drew a connection between Forbidden archeology and the work of Christian creationists. “As is well known,” they noted (p. 192), “Creationists try to show that humans are of recent origin, and that empirical investigations accord with human history as recorded in the Old Testament. Forbidden archeology (Fa) offers a brand of Creationism based on something quite different, namely ancient Vedic beliefs. From this starting point, instead of claiming a human history of mere millennia, Fa argues for the existence of Homo sapiens way back into the Tertiary, perhaps even earlier.”
In l’anthropologie (1995 v.99, no. 1, p. 159), Marylène Pathou-Mathis wrote: “M. Cremo and R. Thompson have willfully written a provocative work that raises the problem of the influence of the dominant ideas of a time period on scientific research. These ideas can compel the researchers to orient their analyses according to the conceptions that are permitted by the scientific community.” She concluded, “The documentary richness of this work, more historical and sociological than scientific, is not to be ignored.” And in British Journal for the History of Science (1995 v. 28, pp. 377
–379), Tim Murray noted in his review of Forbidden archeology (p. 379): “I have no doubt that there will be some who will read this book and profit from it. Certainly it provides the historian of archaeology with a useful compendium of case studies in the history and sociology of scientific knowledge, which can be used to foster debate within archaeology about how to describe the epistemology of one’s discipline.” He further characterized Forbidden archeology as a book that “joins others from creation science and New Age philosophy as a body of works which seek to address members of a public alienated from science, either because it has become so arcane or because it has ceased to suit some in search of meaning for their lives.” Murray acknowledged that the Vedic perspective of Forbidden archeology might have a role to play in the future development of archeology. He wrote in his review (p. 379) that archeology is now in a state of flux, with practitioners debating “issues which go to the conceptual core of the discipline.” Murray then proposed,“Whether the vedas have a role to play in this is up to the individual scientists concerned.”
This openmindedness is characteristic of the reviews of Forbidden archeology that appeared in respected academic and scientific journals, the only exception being a particularly vitriolic attack by Jonathan Marks in american Journal of Physical anthropology (1994 v. 93, no. 1, pp.
140–141). Other than that, demands to totally exclude the Vedic perspective of Forbidden archeology from the discourse of science were confined to the publications of extremist groups, such as skeptics societies (whose skepticism does not extend to the theory of evolution) and the unremittingly anticreationist National Center for Science Education in the United States (misleadingly named so as to imply some governmental connection). Also in this category is an attempted book-length debunking by Michael Brass (the antiquity of man).
Wiktor Stoczkowski, reviewing Forbidden archeology in l’Homme (1995 v. 35, pp. 173–174), accurately noted (p. 173), “Historians of science repeat tirelessly that the Biblical version of origins was replaced in the nineteenth century by the evolution theory. In our imaginations, we substitute this simple story for the more complex reality that we are today confronted with a remarkable variety of origins accounts.” Among those accounts Stoczkowski included those of the Biblical creationists. “Forbidden archeology,” he added, “gives us one more, dedicated to ‘His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada’ and inspired by the Vedic philosophy that disciples study in the United States at the Bhaktivedanta Institute, a branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness.”
A favorable estimation of Forbidden archeology’s Vedic roots was offered by Hillel Schwarz in Journal of unconventional History (1994 v.
6, no. 1, pp. 68–76). “Forbidden archeology takes the current conventions of decoding to their extreme,” said Schwarz (p. 75).“The authors find modern Homo sapiens to be continuous contemporaries of the apelike creatures from whom evolutionary biologists usually trace human descent or bifurcation, thus confirming those Vedic sources that presume the nearly illimitable antiquity of the human race.” He added (p. 76), “Despite its unhidden religious partisanship, the book deserves a reckoning in this review for its embrace of a global humanity permanently distinct from other primates.” He accurately detected the book’s implicit thesis, namely, that “humanity is no mere biochemical exfoliation but a work of the spirit, in touch with (and devoted to) the ancient, perfect, perfectly sufficient, unchanging wisdom of the Vedic masters.”
In his book origin of the Human Species (2001), published by the academic publisher Rodopi in its series on Studies in the History of Western Philosophy, Dennis Bonnette, head of the philosophy department of Niagara University, said (p. 130): “Cremo and Thompson are not evolutionary materialists or Biblical creationists. They openly state Hindu affiliation as Bhaktivedanta Institute members. Following Vedic literature, they hold that the human race is of great antiquity, hundreds of millions of years old. For this reason, many critics attack Forbidden archeology, claiming its authors’ belief system precludes unbiased handling of the subject matter. Such personal attacks are unjust and unfounded. Every author has a philosophical stance which might, but need not, negate objectivity. Forbidden archeology’s historical evidence and argumentation stand on their own merits as sociological and epistemological critiques of contemporary paleoanthropology.”
As might be expected, Christian creationists have reacted favorably to Forbidden archeology. Peter Line, who reviewed the abridged version of Forbidden archeology in Creation Research Society Quarterly (1995 v. 32, p. 46), said, “This book is a must reading for anyone interested in human origins.” After expressing his surprise at finding the book in a major U.S. chain store, Line noted that its “theoretical outlook is derived from the Vedic literature in India, which supports the idea that the human race is of great antiquity.” Line made clear that he did not share this view: “As a recent earth creationist, I would not accept the evolutionary time scale that the authors appear to accept. However, the authors have shown that even if you accept the evolutionary view of a vast age for the earth, the theory of human evolution is not supported.” Forbidden archeology also got positive reactions from some Islamic and Native American authors.