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Does it falsify the knuckle-walking theory? Previously, many believed that our ancestors evolved from knuckle-walking apes like chimpanzees. Ardipithecus lacked evidence of knuckle-walking, suggesting that upright walking predated this adaptation and that early ancestors might have had different locomotor behaviors than previously thought.
Implications for the Last Common Ancestor: The skeleton's features indicate that the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees could have been less like a knuckle-walker and more like Ardipithecus, challenging long-standing models and prompting reevaluation of human evolutionary trees.
The Broader Context: Why Finding Ardipithecus Was a Scientific Turnaround
The discovery reshaped many assumptions: