Principal Christine Shaw
Our knowledge of the livestock of Celtic farms dating to the end of the first millennium BC is based upon the bones recovered from archaeological excavations and the prehistoric rock carvings found particularly in Scandinavia, Spain and Italy
Sufficient information has been recovered from evidence (bones and woollen fragments) to identify the sheep of prehistory, and so to trace the descendants. These rare breeds have survived in discrete, isolated groups on the islands in the west of Scotland. The four or five breeds which appear to have been farmed in prehistory can be seen in paddocks around the Farm. A typical flock towards the end of the Iron Age probably contained a mixture of pure and crossed Soay, Manx, Hebridean and Shetland breeds. In all the breeds, both ram and ewe are typically horned, being regularly mistaken for goats. It is possible to estimate the age of sheep by counting the major growth ridges on the horns.
Recently we received an enquiry about more detailed background information to the origins of the different primitive breeds. While this is not one of the special areas of expertise at the Farm, readers wishing to explore the matter further may like to visit the correspondence with Patrick Stubbe who is an educational scientist lecturing at a Teacher Training College ["Highschool"] in Brussels, Belgium.
These were the first sheep to be domesticated by man in the New Stone Age (Neolithic) when farming began. At first they were probably kept for their meat, although their rough coats were made into felt, the earliest form of cloth. Their coats which are shed naturally are a mixture of hair and kemp. The Moufflon and Soay breeds do not flock easily, move at great speed and are quite capable of jumping fences 2 metres high !
The successor to the Moufflon was the Soay sheep, the typical sheep of the Bronze Age and early Iron Age. The meat of both Moufflon and Soay is remarkably fat free and very much like venison to eat. The Soay sheep have a woolly rather than hairy fleece, which they also shed naturally. Despite its short staple (wool length), farmers collected it by plucking it off in season. It was then spun into yarn and woven into fabric on a simple upright warp-weighted loom. Many spindle whorls and loom weights have been found on Iron Age settlement sites.
'Loghtan' comes from the Manx word meaning mouse brown. Both rams and ewes of this breed can be 2-horned or 4-horned, and sometimes may have more. Like the Moufflon and Soay, the Manx Loghtan shed their fleece in late spring/early summer.
By the Iron Age the sheep were generally heavier and had woollier fleeces with a longer staple which required shearing. The bone evidence of Hebridean sheep coincides with the discovery of sheep shears.
The Shetland sheep are those of the late Iron Age and early Roman period They are slightly heavier than the Manx and Hebridean, and are normally white, although coloured Shetlands are not uncommonTheir fleece is infinitely superior in quality and staple length. From the Roman historians we know that the Celts loved to wear clothes of primary colours which could be obtained from natural dyes, such as woad and madder.
Created 18 January 2002 - Updated 17th February 2005