1000–500 BCE: (A Second African Commercial Revolution — The Congo Basin, Not Just West Africa but Also Equatorial Africa Developing Long-Distance Commercial …

1000–500 BCE: (A Second African Commercial Revolution — The Congo Basin, Not Just West Africa but Also Equatorial Africa Developing Long-Distance Commercial Networks Not Many Centuries Later, River Routes as the Primary Arteries of Commerce with Bantu-Speaking Farming and Fishing Communities Moving Goods by Boat Upriver and Downriver, Secondary Feeder Routes Through the Rainforest with Batwa Foraging Peoples Carrying Forest Products Such as Hides, Ivory, Beeswax, and Honey): West Africa was not the only region of early emerging commercial networks in the continent. Even farther south, the Congo basin in the heart of equatorial Africa was home as well, and not all that many centuries later, to a second major African network of interconnected exchange relations over long distances. In the Congo basin the primary routes of commerce followed the numerous large rivers, with traders from Bantu-speaking farming and fishing communities moving their goods upriver and downriver by boat. Secondary feeder routes followed paths through the surrounding rainforests to the rivers, with the Batwa foraging peoples — the so-called Pygmies — especially carrying forest products such as hides, ivory, beeswax, and honey along those tracks. Here is a commercial system adapted to its environment with the same ingenuity that the West African system showed in adapting to the savanna. Where the Sudan belt used donkeys and overland routes, the Congo basin used boats and rivers. Where the savanna towns specialized in manufactured goods, the rainforest networks specialized in the extraction and transport of forest products. Different ecologies, different transport technologies, different commodity mixes — but the same fundamental human impulse toward exchange, specialization, and the generation of wealth through commerce. The Congo basin commercial revolution is the one that the standard narrative does not even know to ignore, because its very existence has barely entered the historiographical consciousness.