Origin of the domestic dog Neolithic dog specimens with sequences from over 5,000 dogs and wolves. These Neolithic dog specimens included a dog sample from the Early Neolithic site in Herxheim, Germany dated 7,000 YBP, one from the Late Neolithic site of Kirschbaum (Cherry Tree) Cave near Forchheim, Germany dated 4,700 YBP, and one found in the Late Neolithic passage grave at Newgrange, Ireland dated 4,800 YBP. The study calculated a mutation rate for the 7,000 YBP Neolithic dog and found that it matched the mutation rate of the Taimyr-1 specimen, and noted that this also matched the mutation rate for the Newgrange dog that
Dog anatomy study of dog skull shape compared to extant carnivorans proposed that "The greatest shape distances between dog breeds clearly surpass the maximum divergence between species in the Carnivora. Moreover, domestic dogs occupy a range of novel shapes outside the domain of wild carnivorans." The domestic dog compared to the wolf shows the greatest variation in the size and shape of the skull (Evans 1979) that range from 7 to 28 cm in length (McGreevy 2004). Wolves are dolichocephalic (long skulled) but not as extreme as some breeds of dogs such as greyhounds and Russian wolfhounds (McGreevy 2004). Canine brachycephaly (short-skulledness)