How did The Descent of Man connect humans with the great African apes?

In his 1871 work, The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin argued that human beings share a recent common ancestor with the great African apes. By proposing this common ancestry, Darwin challenged the prevailing view that humans were separate from the rest of the animal kingdom, placing them firmly within the evolutionary framework of the natural world.1

It is important to correct a common historical misconception: many of Darwin’s contemporaries incorrectly interpreted his work to mean that humans were the direct descendants of existing species of apes. In reality, Darwin’s theory posits that humans and modern African apes diverged from a shared ancestor. While some 19th-century thinkers sought a "missing link"—a single creature representing a direct, linear transition—modern science recognizes that the relationship is defined by common ancestry rather than direct descent.21

Darwin identified intelligence, which facilitated the development of language and technology, as the primary evolutionary advantage of the human species.1