ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Evolutionary Eden: The Descent of Sheep in C20th Ecological Thought and Practice”

• In Event: Searching for Eden in 20th-Century Ecological Thought

English Abstract

This presentation will explore the position of Soay sheep in 20th-century ecological thought and practice. A unique and “primitive” breed native to the Scottish archipelago of St Kilda, in the 20th century, Soay sheep were reimagined by breed conservationists and ungulate ecologists as Great Britain’s Ur breed of domesticated sheep. Enthusiasts celebrated them as an evolutionary link in the story of Britain’s unusually diversified landscape of sheep breeds, while intensive longitudinal ecological field studies positioned St Kilda’s population of Soays as a model of “natural” or “wild” sheep behaviour for ungulate ecologists around the world. Of core significance to the evolutionary imaginations of Soay sheep is St Kilda itself—a remote windswept island archipelago consistently interpreted in British culture as a place outside of time itself. This presentation will analyze the ways in which Soay sweeps’ geographical, genetic, and figurative insularity contributed to its key positioning within the evolutionary history of Ovis aries in the 20th century.

Author

• Rebecca Woods, University of Toronto