page_title: Specimens of Archaeopteryx
section_title: Historical reviews
hierarchical_section_title: Specimens of Archaeopteryx / The Berlin specimen / History / Historical reviews
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Prof.Wilhelm Barnim Dames
context_page_description: Archaeopteryx fossils from the quarries of Solnhofen limestone represent the most famous and well-known fossils from this area. They are highly significant to paleontology and avian evolution in that they document the fossil record's oldest-known birds.
  Over the years, twelve body fossil specimens of Archaeopteryx and a feather that may belong to it have been found, though the Haarlem specimen was reassigned to another genus by two researchers in 2017. All of the fossils come from the upper Jurassic lithographic limestone deposits, quarried for centuries, near Solnhofen, Germany.
context_section_description: University of Geneva geology professor Carl Vogt was the first individual to express interest in committing the specimen to scientific study. His original attempts, however, were committed before the specimen had been secured by a scientific institution and was still in the possession of physician Karl Häberlein. While Häberlein struggled to sell the specimen, Vogt endeavored to examine and publish a scientific study on the specimen, despite Häberlein's agreement to not allow anyone to produce a cast, duplication, drawing or photograph of the fossil. Vogt nevertheless published a photograph of the specimen entrusted to him by Häberlein in the Berlin journal "Naturforscher" in September 1879, the first published photo of the fossil. He later published on the specimen in several papers in Germany, Switzerland, England and France, as well as presenting the specimen at a Swiss naturalist meeting in 1879.
  Despite the shortcomings of these early attempts, Vogt was notable in that his passionate defense of evolutionary theory, much in line with Thomas Huxley's earlier predictions about dinosaurs and birds, was largely on the mark with respect to Archaeopteryx's role in the evolution of birds. Working from the Berlin specimen, Vogt described the genus as a "flying reptile furnished with bird's feathers" and neither a bird nor a reptile, but an "intermediate link between both." Nevertheless, he also incorrectly predicted Aves as a paraphyletic taxon in which ratites evolved from dinosaurs and flying birds from Archaeopteryx. Many of these early conclusions were refuted by London paleontologist Harry Govier Seeley in 1881, who believed the animal to be a true bird. Seeley also originally posited that the Berlin specimen may represent a separate species from the London specimen, based on a comparison of skeletal measurements between the two.
  Famous paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh of Yale had the opportunity to study both the London and Berlin specimens in 1881. He described his findings in a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in York, England, where he reported previously unnoticed features of the fossils including real teeth. Marsh, like Seeley, defended the animal as representing a real bird, albeit the most reptilian one known. Geologist John Evans also studied the fossil in 1881, and observed that the feathers on the hind limbs of the animal appear to have the same structure as those on the wings and may have acted as lifting structures in flight. This idea later formed the basis for American zoologist William Beebe's prediction that a four-winged ancestor played a pivotal role in avian evolution.
  Museum curator Wilhelm Dames was responsible for the first full scientific description of the Berlin specimen. Prior to this substantial monograph of 1884, Dames had already published a few shorter articles about the skull morphology while it was still partially covered by matrix. Now that the specimen was under his control and full exposed, his subsequent study and monograph was the first comprehensive description of an Archaeopteryx specimen that had not been disarticulated.
caption: Prof. Wilhelm Barnim Dames
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