Ancient wolf DNA to show how predator became man's best friend

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8. That date doesn't say anything about domestication

The speculation I've seen is that one sub-species of wolf which arose at that time was more naturally docile, and that all of its members eventually took up hanging around with humans so that there are no remaining wild relatives.

It also seems that fully domesticated dogs -- the ones you can trust to herd the sheep or lie by the fireside -- only go back to the origins of agriculture in the Middle East. It's the thousands of years before that, when humans may have already been partnering with half-wild wolf-dogs, that are so much in question.