Letter to the Editor

Raveenthiran [1] places the introduction of circumcision as a consequence of wars between the early civilisations of Egypt and Asia Minor. However, there is ample evidence to show that circumcision was practised by hunter–gatherer people tens of millennia before these civilisations (and their wars) arose. Palaeolithic European cave art appears to show circumcised penises [2], and circumcision is traditionally practised by the hunter–gatherer native Australians [3], who until recent times had been isolated from other humans for at least 45,000 years [4].