The nuclear genome sequence was generated for a dog specimen that was found in the Late Neolithic passage grave at Newgrange, Ireland and radiocarbon dated at 4,800 YBP. A genetic analysis of the Newgrange dog showed that it was male, did not possess genetic variants associated with modern coat length nor color, was not as able to process starch as efficiently as modern dogs but more efficiently than wolves, and showed ancestry from a population of wolves that could not be found in other dogs nor wolves today. The mutation rates calibrated from both the Taimyr wolf and the Newgrange dog genomes suggest that the modern wolf and dog populations diverged from a common ancestor between 20,000 and 60,000 YBP. This indicates that either dogs were domesticated much earlier than their first appearance in the archaeological record, or they arrived in the Arctic early, or both. Another view is that because northern breeds can trace at least some of their ancestry back to the Taimyr wolf, this indicates the possibility of more than one domestication event.