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This thesis investigates the issue of prehistoric and historical language contact between speakers of Greek and speakers of the Anatolian languages. It is the first systematic attempt to understand to what extent Greek and the languages belonging to the Anatolian branch of Indo-European (Hittite and Luwian in primis) influenced each other between the second and the first millennium before our era, and in particular how much of early Greek language can be traced back to Anatolian models. This has been carried out through a case-to-case analysis of real or presumptive contact phenomena in the domains of phonology, morphosyntax, and lexicon (ch. 2-5). The introduction (1) offers an outline of the linguistic landscape of the Graeco-Anatolian area, together with some reflections on language phylogeny and contact. The final chapter (5) focuses on the dialect of Pamphylia, which is used as a control sample to check the ways in which a variety of Greek historically in contact with Anatolian dialects could be affected by language contact. I have offered a stratigraphy of possible contacts between Greek and the Anatolian languages, by disentangling linguistic borrowings from independent innovations, areal features from Indo-European archaisms. I have argued that several of the presumptive similarities between Greek and one or the other Anatolian language are either attributable to reasons different from contact, or need to be rejected because the alleged similarity was based on wrong premises or insufficient grounds. Any scenario envisaging diffused bilingualism is very difficult to uphold before the classical era. A certain degree of cultural contact is however undeniable. Since our evidence is very often partial and since absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, one should raise a firm caveat against any type of hyper-sceptical approach.

The existence of traits of impressive complexity has always puzzled evolutionary biologists. Traits such as camera eyes, bacteria flagella and plant carnivory result from intricate interactions between multiple structural and metabolic components. Understanding how each of these components originated and evolved to lead to the emergence of such a network of interactions and the associated function is therefore a major scientific challenge. Darwin and Wallace provided probably the major contribution to the problem; natural selection operating over successive generations via slight modifications can produce complexity. Nonetheless, there is still a large gap between the macroevolutionary patterns that are observed and the genetic changes underlying them. Here I address the problem of complex trait origins using the C4 photosynthetic metabolism as a study system. My comparative analyses of whole genome sequencing data of selected grass lineages showed that (1) enzymes of the C4 cycle can evolve via a burst of amino acid substitutions concentrated in a relatively short period of time, followed by continued adaptive evolution and anatomical specializations, showing that a single C4 origin can give rise to a variety of C4 phenotypes; (2) gene duplication via dosage effects can be a mechanism to suddenly increase the expression levels of genes involved in the C4 cycle; (3) adaptive mutations in components of the C4 trait can evolve in isolation in distinct genetic pools, and later be combined in admixture events; and (4) in some cases such adaptive mutations might be swept across populations by means other than recursive recombination. Overall, the findings presented in this dissertation suggest that (i) the components required for a rudimentary C4 cycle might be acquired in a relatively short period of time via large effect mutations on key genes, and (ii) genetic exchanges between divergent lineages can facilitate the assembly and optimization of a C4 metabolism. In addition, the methods developed here to analyse the genomic origins of C4 photosynthesis using low-coverage sequence data can be applied to other groups and other traits, potentially contributing to the advent of large-scale comparative genomic analyses to understand the evolutionary origins of complex adaptive traits.

Physiological estrus was induced in two ovariectomized heifers (a Hereford and an Angus) by sequential daily injections of progesterone and estradiol. Vaginal mucus and urine were collected daily from both females. A method for extraction of the short chain fatty acids and removal of substances which interfered with chromatographic analysis was developed. The concentrations of acetic, propionic, butyric, isovaleric, and valeric acids in urine and mucus were determined. Concentrations of all acids were higher in urine than in mucus in both animals. The concentrations in both urine and mucus were higher in the Angus female than in the Hereford female. Bulls exposed to an ether extract of urine collected from the Angus female one day after injection of estrogen exhibited sexual excitation. The males were not stimulated by urine extracts from the Hereford female.