[sandworm101]

Plucking is the ancient form of sheering. You literally pull the hair off the sheep by hand. You aren't yanking it out by the roots, the shaft generally broke rather than the root put out of the skin, but I doubt the sheep enjoyed the process. In short: gathering wool from sheep was very different before ready acess to steel shears.

https://www.chassagne.ca/index.php/the-croft-mainmenu-30/the...

"Before the invention of shears, the sheep were plucked or “rooed”, a Scandinavian word for plucking, and this tradition was still carried out on the Shetland Island until about forty years ago."

[bregma]

If you have ever encountered a sheep's fleece you would realize that it's not possible to pluck. It's a solid mat. It's not hair. Even paleolithic people had sharp knives and scrapers capable of shearing a fleece, so it's not stretch to imagine iron age people having equipment at least as good as their ancestors from 25000 years prior.