Do you have a cite on the Neaderthal/dog association?
My understanding is that the domestic dog as we know it was probably bred from the Indian (India) wolf, roughly 15,000 years ago, and only one paper I am aware of gives a possible genetic depth of up to 130,000 years. No physical evidence at all.
>>>>"Do you have a cite on the Neaderthal/dog association?"<<<<
Cooperation with wolves were most likely a key to the ability for Neanderthals to survive in the cold Europe. Genetic research shows that dog and wolf parted 135,000 years ago. They also reveal that the dogs ancestor is the European gray wolf. There are wolf remains close to Neanderthals, but not with the prey. This probably means the wolf had a special relation with them. There are also big similarities between Neanderthal preys and wolves preys.
A new analysis of the dog origin places it between 15,000 and 40,000 years ago, obviously because of the belief that dogs must change morph in a domestication scenario. The main problem with this reasoning is that there is no evidence for a special dog phenotype older than 14,000 years, and analysis of American historical dogs claim they have an Eurasian origin. They must then have been brought with the settlers that crossed the Bering strait 15,000 years ago. It's also unlikely that the common dog psychological traits can have evolved in just a few thousands years.
It's quite interesting that dogs are sensitive to human cues, and that some humans (autistic mainly) are sensitive to dog's cues. This tells us that the original relation between dogs and humans was not as domesticator / domesticated, rather like a symbiotic relation. This view is also presented in "dogs" by Raymond and Lorna Coppinger. They believe dogs first appeared at humans campsites as scavengers. I think this view is fully compatible with early symbiotic relations between dogs and humans. What's more, the selection would not be anything like traditional breeding. The tamest animals would be most successful in this new environment, but selection on body-shape would not occur. Those first dogs would not look anything different from their wild wolves cousins in the archaeological record.
The book "dogs" also describes how difficult it is to make wolves friendly toward humans. They must be taken very early from the den, and trained for months. Even after this, they will still not be suitable as pets. This must be carried out generation after generation with selection for the most tame ones. There must also be artificial breeding, which would be rather troublesome. I think it's inconceivable that ancient hunter-gatherers would go into this trouble, without even having any great benefit from it.
excerpted from,
http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm
TT
I read somewhere that the horse was domesticated in Central Asia (by Iranic-Germanic-Slavic peoples), hence the famous Aryan stereotypes (the chariot peoples who moved out of India and into the Middle east), while the donkey was a domesticated version of the Indian wild ass, the chicken out of Indonesia while the Sheep and goat from West Asia.