Archaeological evidence suggests that the latest point

It is not known whether humans domesticated the wolf as such to initiate dog's divergence from its ancestors, or whether dog's evolutionary path had already taken a different course prior to domestication. For example, it is hypothesized that some wolves gathered around the campsites of paleolithic camps to scavenge refuse, and associated evolutionary pressure developed that favored those who were less frightened by, and keener in approaching, humans.
Tesem, an old Egyptian sighthound-like dog.
The bulk of the scientific evidence for the evolution of the domestic dog stems from morphological studies of archaeological findings and mitochondrial DNA studies. The divergence date of roughly 15,000 years ago is based in part on archaeological evidence that demonstrates the domestication of dogs occurred more than 15,000 years ago,[23][32] and some genetic evidence indicates the domestication of dogs from their wolf ancestors began in the late Upper Paleolithic close to the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary, between 17,000 and 14,000 years ago.[41] But there is a wide range of other, contradictory findings that make this issue controversial.[citation needed] There are findings beginning currently at 33,000 years ago distinctly placing them as domesticated dogs evidenced not only by shortening of the muzzle but widening as well as crowding of teeth.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the latest point at which dogs could have diverged from wolves was roughly 15,000 years ago, although it is possible they diverged much earlier.[23] In 2008, a team of international scientists released findings from an excavation at Goyet Cave in Belgium declaring a large, toothy canine existed 31,700 years ago and ate a diet of horse, musk ox and reindeer.[42]
Prior to this Belgian discovery, the earliest dog bones found were two large skulls from Russia and a mandible from Germany dated from roughly 14,000 years ago.[23][37] Remains of smaller dogs from Natufian cave deposits in the Middle East, including the earliest burial of a human being with a domestic dog, have been dated to around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.[37][43] There is a great deal of archaeological evidence for dogs throughout Europe and Asia around this period and through the next two thousand years (roughly 8,000 to 10,000 years ago), with specimens uncovered in Germany, the French Alps, and Iraq, and cave paintings in Turkey.[23] The oldest remains of a domesticated dog in the Americas were found in Texas and have been dated to about 9,400 years ago