page_title: Specimens of Archaeopteryx
section_title: The Berlin specimen
hierarchical_section_title: Specimens of Archaeopteryx / The Berlin specimen
caption_attribution_description: English: Archaeopteryx lithographica fossil displayed at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. (Original specimen; not a cast)
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: The Berlin Specimen (MB.Av.101) was discovered in 1874 or 1875 at the Blumenberg quarry near Eichstätt, Germany, by farmer Jakob Niemeyer, who reportedly sold the fossil for the money to buy a cow around a year later, to inn-keeper Johann Dörr, who again sold it to Ernst Otto Häberlein, the son of K. Häberlein. Placed on sale between 1877 and 1881, with potential buyers including O.C. Marsh of Yale University's Peabody Museum, it was eventually bought by the Natural History Museum of Berlin, where it is now displayed, for 20,000 Goldmark. The transaction was financed by Ernst Werner von Siemens, founder of the famous company that bears his name. Described in 1884 by Wilhelm Dames, it is the most complete specimen, and the first with a complete head. It was named in 1897 by Dames as a new species, A. siemensii; a 2002 evaluation supports the A. siemensii species identification.
caption: The Berlin specimen
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