Berber languages suggests that the C-Group population — which, along with the Kerma culture, inhabited the Nile valley immediately before the arrival of the first Nubian speakers — spoke Afro-Asiatic languages. Roger Blench (2018) suggests that Proto-Berber speakers had spread from the Nile River valley to North Africa 4,000-5,000 years ago due to the spread of pastoralism, and experienced intense language leveling about 2,000 years ago as the Roman Empire was expanding in North Africa. Hence, although Berber had split off from Afroasiatic several thousand years ago, Proto-Berber itself can only be reconstructed to a period as late as 200 A.D. Blench
Proto-Berber language the basis of the lexical reconstruction of livestock-herding, a Proto-Berber 1 (PB1) stage around 7,000 years ago and a Proto-Berber 2 (PB2) stage as the direct ancestor of contemporary Berber languages. In the third millennium BC, proto-Berber speakers spread across the area from Morocco to Egypt. In the last millennium BC, another Berber expansion created the Berber peoples noted in Roman records. The final spread occurred in the first millennium BC, when the Tuareg, now possessing camels, moved into the central Sahara; in the past, the northern parts of the Sahara were much more inhabitable than they are now. The