[feintruled]

It's a bit of a fringe theory but there's a suggestion that the human 'alliance' with wolves gave us the edge over Neanderthals and other predators and ensured that it was us who ultimately survived as a species. It's a nice thought for a dog lover.

[IncreasePosts]

Why wouldn't neanderthals form an alliance with wolves too? Especially considering Neanderthals had a multi-hundred-thousand year head start in wolf range compared to homo sapiens.

[b5]

It’s an interesting question. I don’t know if there’s any evidence of wolf domestication by Neanderthals. If they didn’t domesticate them, it would be interesting to try to work out why – maybe there’s a subtle difference in psychology between H. Sapiens and H. Neanderthalensis that enabled us to bridge that gap but not them?

[acchow]

There isn't a whole lot of evidence for how Neanderthals lived. We have only discovered remnants of 400 Neanderthals (about 30 mostly-complete skeletons).

[feintruled]

Again we are in the realms of speculation upon speculation, but Neanderthals didn't have sclera (whites of the eyes) which according to the co-operative eye hypothesis as regards to domesticated hunting dogs allows them to follow our gaze. It does seem odd that Neanderthals didn't try to domesticate them too - surely the first reaction on seeing humans and dogs bring down a mammoth or corral large deer would be 'got to get us some of that', but as sibling comments say we don't know much about them really.