Sheep are a type of domestic animal that people are generally familiar with. There are two types of domestic sheep: goats and sheep. Apart from their appearance, these two types of sheep have roughly the same body structure.
Domestic sheep were domesticated from wild sheep. The earliest domestication of sheep in the world occurred in southwestern Asia. Furthermore, goats and sheep were domesticated around the same time. In the Jericho region of Jordan, goats were already domesticated as early as 8500 BC.
The history of domestic goats and sheep is long. Wild goats were domesticated into domestic goats in the late Longshan Culture period, about four to five thousand years ago. For example, in the Qijia Culture sites in Gansu, located in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, a large number of bones of domestic animals such as pigs, dogs, cattle, and sheep have been found.
By the Shang and Zhou dynasties, sheep farming had become quite advanced. According to oracle bone inscriptions, 158 sheep were used as sacrifices for a seemingly trivial matter like tinnitus, indicating that the number of sheep raised at that time was considerable.
