What is the history of sheep?

Question

What is the history of sheep?

Answer 1

Most genealogies are rather boring, as they involve unnamed ewes and unknown rams....

Answer 2

Evidence for the domestication of sheep dates to 9000 BC in Iraq.[8] Domestic sheep are descended from the mouflon that is found from the mountains of Turkey to southern Iran. It has been found by DNA analysis to be one of two ancestors of domestic sheep. Although the second ancestor has not been identified, both the urial and argali have been ruled out.[9] The urial (O. vignei) is found from northeastern Iran to northwestern India. It has a higher number of chromosomes (58) than domestic sheep (54) which makes it an unlikely ancestor of the latter, but it interbreeds with the mouflon. The argali sheep (O. ammon) of inner Asia (Tibet, Himalayas, Altay Mountains, Tien-Shan and Pamir) has 56 chromosomes and the Siberian snow sheep (Ovis nivicola) has 52 chromosomes.

Evidence of early domesticated sheep has been found in PPNB Jericho and Zawi Chemi Shanidar. The fleece-bearing sheep are only found since the Bronze Age. Primitive breeds, like the Scottish Soay sheep have to be plucked (a process called rooing), instead of sheared, as the kemps are still longer than the soft fleece, or the fleece must be collected from the field after it falls out. The European mouflon (O. musimon) found on Corsica and Sardinia as well as the Cretan and the extinct Cypriot wild sheep are possibly descended from early domestic sheep that turned feral.

Answer 3

Well, the bit they try to ignore involves welly's and Welshmen.

Poor little mites.