Domestication of the sheep
[3] The urial (O. vignei) was once thought to have been a forebear of domestic sheep, as they occasionally interbreed with mouflon in the Iranian part of their range.
Indeed, the Soay, along with other Northern European breeds with short tails, naturally rooing fleece, diminutive size, and horns in both sexes, are closely related to ancient sheep.
Babylonians, Sumerians, and Persians all depended on sheep; and although linen was the first fabric to be fashioned into clothing, wool was a prized product.
Numerous biblical figures kept large flocks, and subjects of the king of Judea were taxed according to the number of rams they owned.
[12]: 75 [13] The rearing of sheep for secondary products, and the resulting breed development, began in either southwest Asia or western Europe.
Archaeological evidence from statuary found at sites in Iran suggests that selection for woolly sheep may have begun around 6000 BCE,[2]: 5 [7]: 11 and the earliest woven wool garments have been dated to two to three thousand years later.
Researchers believe that the development of such clothing encouraged humans to live in areas far colder than the Fertile Crescent, where temperatures averaged 70 °F (21 °C).
[18] There have also been numerous identifications of Nomadic pastoralism in archaeological sites, identified by a prevalence of sheep and goat bones, a lack of grain or grain-processing equipment, very limited architecture showing a set of characteristic traits, a location outside the region's zone of agriculture, and ethnographic analogy to modern nomadic pastoral peoples.
[19] There is a large but constantly declining minority of nomadic and seminomadic pastoralists in countries such as Saudi Arabia (probably less than 3%), Iran (4%), and Afghanistan (at most 10%).
Mongolian selection and veterinary science classifies the sheep herd of the country by (i) wool fiber's length, thinness and softness, (ii) capability of surviving at various altitudes, (iii) physical appearance, tail form, size, and other criteria.
[28] The first sheep entered North Africa via Sinai, and were present in ancient Egyptian society between eight and seven thousand years ago.
However, in 2002, further genetic analysis revealed that there are only four distinct varieties of Ethiopian sheep: short-fat-tailed, long-fat-tailed, fat-rumped, and thin-tailed.
Excavations show that in about 6000 BCE, during the Neolithic period of prehistory, the Castelnovien people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues near present-day Marseille in the south of France, were among the first in Europe to keep domestic sheep.
[31] Practically from its inception, ancient Greek civilization relied on sheep as primary livestock, and were even said to name individual animals.
[2]: 74 During the Roman occupation of the British Isles, a large wool processing factory was established in Winchester, England in about 50 CE.
[2]: 8–9 [7]: 12 As the original breeders of the fine-wooled merino sheep that have historically dominated the wool trade, the Spanish gained great wealth.
[33] Spanish rulers eager to increase wool profits gave extensive legal rights to the Mesta, often to the detriment of local peasantry.
[33] Exportation of merinos without royal permission was also a punishable offense, thus ensuring a near-absolute monopoly on the breed until the mid-18th century.
[8]: 66 After the Napoleonic Wars and the global distribution of the once-exclusive Spanish stocks of Merinos, sheep raising in Spain reverted to hardy coarse-wooled breeds such as the Churra, and was no longer of international economic significance.
[35] The high concentration and more sedentary nature of shepherding in the UK allowed sheep especially adapted to their particular purpose and region to be raised, thereby giving rise to an exceptional variety of breeds in relation to the land mass of the country.
[8]: 58 Today, the sheep industry in the UK has diminished significantly,[37] though pedigreed rams can still fetch around 100,000 Pounds sterling at auction.
[2] No export of wool or animals is known to have occurred from these populations, but flocks did disseminate throughout what is now Mexico and the Southwest United States with Spanish colonists.
[2]: 9 [7]: 11 Especially during the periods of political unrest and civil war in Britain spanning the 1640s and 1650s which disrupted maritime trade, the colonists found it pressing to produce wool for clothing.
One of many restrictive trade measures that precipitated the American Revolution, the sheep industry in the Northeast grew despite the bans.
In modern America, a minor event in rodeos is mutton busting, in which children compete to see who can stay atop a sheep the longest before falling off.
[44] In the 1970s, Roy McBride, a farmer from Alpine, Texas, invented a collar filled with the poison compound 1080 to protect his livestock from coyotes, which tended to attack the throat.
[48] The primary challenges to the sheep industry in South America are the phenomenal drop in wool prices in the late 20th century and the loss of habitat through logging and overgrazing.
[50] In 2007, New Zealand even declared 15 February their official National Lamb Day to celebrate the country's history of sheep production.
Before the advent of fast air and maritime shipping, wool was one of the few viable products that was not subject to spoiling on the long passage back to British ports.
[53] The abundant new land and milder winter weather of the region also aided the growth of the Australian and New Zealand sheep industries.
