Along with dogs, sheep are believed to be one of the earliest animals to be domesticated by humans.
According to Wikipedia, sheep are most likely descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia and their domestication date is estimated to fall between 11,000 and 9000 BCE in Mesopotamia and possibly around 7000 BCE in Mehrgarh in the Indus Valley.
For some reason, sheep are very popular on the Mastodon social media network and Thursday, 7th November, was peak sheep day, with photos and videos being posted all day, together with the customary hashtags, although these were all Welsh, e.g.#defaidodon (sheep of Mastodon). One very humorous sample is shown below.
Picking up on the theme of the post, domestication has involved a long process of selective breeding to arrive at today’s breeds, which bear little resemblance to their wild ancestors. For much of their history, most sheep were powered by charcoal before the Industrial Revolution, but this soon changed to coal due to its higher calorific value. With the climate crisis underway at present, sheep powered by electricity and renewables are now being developed; and there is even talk of fuelling them with biomass. 😉