Human Footprint

(bright music) (announcer) Ladies and gentlemen, were gonna move on to the Scottish National.

(Sally) Oh, this should be good.

National champions.

Very important.

(whooshing) (Shane) And theres no better place to witness our obsession with wool than the Golden Shears World Sheep Shearing Championships.

(indistinct announcements) How are you doing with the accents?

85% to 90%.

Thats pretty good.

(chuckles) (intense music) (indistinct announcements) (shears snipping) (clippers buzz) (Shane) Feel like a lot of-- a lot of tension is building right now.

(indistinct announcements) My understanding has dropped to about 30% now.

(Sally laughs) (indistinct announcements) (hip-hop music) The competitors on stage are some of the best, and fastest, in the world, clocking about a sheep a minute.

(indistinct announcements) (goat bleats) (applause, cheering) (soft music) (Shane) The shearing competition is just one part of the Royal Highland Show, a centuries-old Scottish gathering of majestic horses, big-boned cattle, and a kaleidoscope of sheep breeds wearing the finest wool around.

(mellow music) My guide is fashion historian Sally Tuckett.

(Sally) I think looking to the past and how people made clothes in the past, the relationship with the raw material can tell you so much about a past society.

(hip-hop music) (Shane) Whether shes teaching at the University of Glasgow... ...or exploring Scotlands beaches with her adventure buddy Margo... (panting) ...Sally spends a lot of time thinking about wool.

(audible chewing) (sheep bleats) As an American, when I think about Scotland, -Scotch, obviously.

-Obviously.

-Uh, you got castles.

-Yup.

-Uh...kilts.

-Yup.

Grass and sheep.

I think--I think youve got it.

(Shane laughs) (majestic music) Youll see sheep all over the place today, that doesnt mean they were necessarily there to begin with.

(Shane) About 10,000 years ago, people in modern-day Turkey discovered they could raise the wild Mouflon sheep for meat, milk, and fur.

Over time, those animals would become modern sheep, the second animal ever domesticated.

(mellow music) Sheep reached the British Isles about 6,000 years ago.

And through generations of selective breeding... (clippers buzzing) ...we transformed these ancient scruffy breeds into todays luxuriant fluff balls.

(majestic music) And as humans changed sheep, sheep began to reshape the landscape.

(whooshing) (hip-hop music) (Sally) 6,000 years ago, Scotland was much more of a woodland.

(Shane) As wool became a vital part of Scotlands economy, more and more forests were converted into pasture.

(Sally) When trees have been removed, and if sheep are brought in, that stops any trees regrowing.

(soft music) (Shane) By the late 1800s, most of Scotlands remaining forests were in the Highlands.

(Sally) The Highland Clearances are an emotive, possibly very misunderstood, and highly symbolic part of Scottish history.

(Shane) The Highlands were home to thousands of tenant farmers working on land belonging to upper-class landowners.

(Sally) The Highland landowners decided that sheep were probably more stable form of income.

Sheep dont need that many people to look after them, so, whole communities would be moved off the land and replaced with thousands of sheep.

(Shane) It was a period of social and environmental upheaval.

Landowners cleared the remaining old-growth forests to make way for sheep.

(Sally) And so thats fundamentally changed the landscape of the Highlands.

(Shane) Today, Scotlands pastures are home to more than six million sheep.

(whooshing) And theyve become an undeniable part of Scotlands national identity.

(sheep bleating) How long have you been doing this?

(Joe) Weve been doing this for 31 years, yeah.

-Okay.

-So, yeah, Mum and Dad-- -How old are you?

-I am 31.

(Shane laughs) (Shane) Okay.

(hip-hop music) When Joe Baker isnt out hunting in his tweeds... ...hes busy running Scotlands 2023 Sheep Farm of the Year.

And hes got some very capable assistants.

(dog panting) (Joe) Zoey, come on.

Good girl.

Zoey.

(Zoey barks) -(grim music) -(sheep bleating) (whooshing) (Joe whistles) Mist, here.

(Mist pants, barks) (hip-hop music) Come by, good girl, come by, thats it.

(whooshing) Good girl, good girl.

(thundering hoofbeats) (Shane) Turns out, managing the second animal ever domesticated means enlisting the first.

(Joe) Way.

So, "way" means right.

"Come by" means left.

(sheep bleating) (Shane) Ive never seen nothing like it.

(whooshing) (sheep bleating)