page_title: Corsicans
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Corsicans / Origin
caption_attribution_description: Simplified Map of Corsica, indicating the geographic distribution of the ancient Corsican Tribes, the main cities and roads in the Roman age. Created by myself based on a satellite image acquired through NASA World Wind 1.3.
context_page_description: The Corsicans are a Romance ethnic group. They are native to Corsica, a Mediterranean island and a territorial collectivity of France.
context_section_description: The island was populated since the Mesolithic (Dame de Bonifacio) and the Neolithic by people who came from the Italian peninsula, especially the modern regions of Tuscany and Liguria. An important megalithic tradition developed locally since the 4th millennium BC. Reached, like Sardinia, by Polada culture influences in the Early Bronze Age, in the 2nd millennium BC Corsica, the southern part in particular, saw the rise of the Torrean civilization, strongly linked to the Nuragic civilization.
  The modern Corsicans are named after an ancient people known by the Romans as Corsi. The Corsi, who gave their name to the island, actually originated from the Northeastern part of Nuragic Sardinia (Gallura). According to Ptolemy, the Corsi were formed by a composite number of tribes that dwelt in Corsica (namely the Belatones or Belatoni, the Cervini, the Cilebenses or Cilibensi, the Cumanenses or Cumanesi, the Licinini, the Macrini, the Opini, the Subasani, the Sumbri, the Tarabeni, the Titiani and the Venacini) as well as in the far north-east of Sardinia (the Lestricones, Lestrigones or Lestriconi / Lestrigoni, the Longonenses or Longonensi). These Corsi shared the island with the Tibulati, who dwelt at the extreme north of Sardinia near the ancient town of Tibula.
  Further research is still needed to answer the question of the origin of the Corsi and their alleged relation with today's Corsicans. According to several scholars, they may have been a group of tribes affiliated to the ancient Ligures, like the Ilvates in the neighboring Ilva island (today's Elba in Italy), and may have spoken the old Ligurian language.
  Corsica was later colonized by Etruscans from what is modern Tuscany, with some brief, localized colonies of Greeks and Carthaginians, until being taken over by the Romans. In subsequent centuries, Corsica was ruled and settled by Pisans (from 1050 to 1295) and the Genoese (from 1295 to 1755, when the island broke free from La Superba): this is reflected in the fact that what amounts to 80% of the Corsican surnames (Casanova, Luciani, Agostini, Colonna, Paoli, Bartoli, Rossi, Albertini, Filippi, Cesari, etc.) is found in Italy, as well as in the fact that the modern Corsican varieties, especially the Northern ones, are linguistically considered part of Tuscan. Because the island has been historically and culturally related to the Italian mainland up until then, the Italian populations from Northern and Central Italy have contributed to a significant degree to the modern Corsican ancestry.
caption: Ancient tribes of Corsica
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