1000 BCE–1000 CE: (Two Lines of Sheep Dispersal Through the Congo Basin — The Central Sudanic Word *-meme Tracking the Spread of Sheep Southwestward from Sou…

1000 BCE–1000 CE: (Two Lines of Sheep Dispersal Through the Congo Basin — The Central Sudanic Word *-meme Tracking the Spread of Sheep Southwestward from South Sudan Through Bantu-Speaking Areas Along the Middle Congo River to the Atlantic Coast, and the Great Lakes Bantu Word *-panga Tracking a Second Line Southwestward to the Societies Around the Upper and Middle Sankuru River, Both During the First Millennium BCE): The linguistic evidence for the Congo basin commercial networks extends beyond iron to include the movement of domestic animals. At least one domestic animal, the sheep, dispersed out from the African Great Lakes region following these same river routes, apparently beginning also in the first millennium BCE. One line of the spread of sheep raising, marked by the diffusion from language to language of a particular word — *-meme, for “sheep” — passed west from peoples living in the far southeastern parts of today’s South Sudan, who spoke languages of the Central Sudanic branch of the Nilo-Saharan family. This word tracked the spread of sheep southwestward through the Bantu-speaking areas along the middle Congo River and from there to the Atlantic coast around the mouth of the Congo River. A second line of the spread of sheep, revealed in the distribution of a Great Lakes Bantu word for the animal — *-panga — passed during the same time span from the early Bantu settlers of the African Great Lakes southwestward to the Bantu societies of the regions around and south of the upper and middle Sankuru River. Two words, two routes, two streams of sheep dispersal — each independently documented through historical linguistics, each following the river highway system that was simultaneously carrying iron technology, trade goods, and commercial relationships across the equatorial forest. The Congo basin was not a barrier to exchange. It was a conduit, and the evidence is written in the vocabulary of every Bantu language that adopted a new word for an animal it had not previously known.