Domestication of Wolves

Morphological comparisons between wolves and domestic dogs have narrowed the likely ancestral subspecies of gray wolf to Middle Eastern and South Asian wolves.[22] This is confirmed by SNP studies done in 2010, which point to the Middle East as the source of most of the genetic diversity in the domestic dog and the most likely origin of domestication events.[16] The actual process undergone in domesticating the wolf is still debated. Although it is popularly assumed that dogs originated as a result of artificial selection, the general intractability of adult wolves to human handling has led certain experts to theorise that the domestication process occurred through natural selection, when Mesolithic human communities began building permanent settlements in which a new ecological niche (middens and landfills) was opened to wolves. These wolves would have formed a commensal relationship with humans, feeding on their waste over many generations, with natural selection favouring assertive wolves with shorter flight distances in human presence, and causing physical changes related to the redundancy of features adapted for hunting big game.[38]
Although dogs are the wolf's closest relative (the genetic divergence between gray wolves and dogs is only 1.8%, as opposed to over 4% between gray wolves, Ethiopian wolves and coyotes),[39] comparative studies on dog and wolf behaviour and anatomy have shown that dog physiology and most dog behaviours are comparable to those of young wolves, an example of neoteny and pedomorphism.[40] The tympanic bullae are large, convex and almost spherical in wolves, while the bullae of dogs are smaller, compressed and slightly crumpled.[41] Compared to equally sized dogs, wolves tend to have 20% larger skulls and 10% bigger brains.[42] This reduction lies in the parts of the brain that deal with sense impressions.[43] The teeth of wolves are also proportionately larger than those of dogs; premolars and molars of wolves are much less