The Corsicans (Corsican, Italian and Ligurian: Corsi; French: Corses) are a Romance ethnic group. They are native to Corsica, a Mediterranean island and a territorial collectivity of France.
Prehistory of Corsica and History of Corsica
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.
The ethnic base of the Corsicans was made up of the Corsican tribes of the Nuragic and then Torrean civilization, of Sardinian origin.