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The prehistory of Corsica is analogous to the prehistories of the other islands in the Mediterranean Sea, such as Sicily, Sardinia, Malta and Cyprus, which could only be accessed by boat and featured cultures that were to some degree insular; that is, modified from the traditional Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic of European prehistoric cultures. The islands of the Aegean Sea and Crete early developed Bronze Age civilizations and are accordingly usually treated under those categories. Stone Age Crete however shares some of the features of the prehistoric Mediterranean islands. The possible presence of Upper Paleolithic people on Corsica during the last glacial period is a topic of interest to professional and amateur prehistorians alike. Currently only one possible site of this period is known. For most of the Paleolithic, Corsica, Sardinia, and all the islands between them were physically continuous with the Italian peninsula, although they have been islands at various times both before and after in geologic history. The insular prehistory of Corsica begins with the Mesolithic (Pre-Neolithic) when people from prehistoric Sardinia crossed the Strait of Bonifacio to hunt from rock shelters in Corsica at approximately 9000 BC. It ends with colonization by the Ancient Greeks at Aléria in 566 BC, the Iron Age. Corsica, or Kyrnos, is not mentioned before then. Thus the history of Corsica begins in 566 BC. ==Genetic demographics== A 2004 genetic study by Tofanelli and others of eight autosomal locations on the DNA in the blood cells of 179 blood donors from Corsica compared genetic distance between alleles (variants at those locations) in an attempt to determine "homogeneity" or closeness of kinship and "heterogeneity" within this sample of the Corsican population and also between this and other samples elsewhere. Analysis of variance was the chief statistical method applied to the data. For Corte, which is inland Corsica, the investigators use the term stochastic (random), finding a higher variability among Corsicans than within the rest of the Mediterranean reference population. There was also a gap between Corse-du-Sud and Haute-Corse. Using an assumed generation of 25 years, the investigators estimate a base population at 20,000 BP for the first humans of Corsica. As this number is in no way supported by archaeological evidence, it suggests that cultural remains of the Paleolithic may well yet turn up. The greatest genetic distances were between the Sardinian and Corsican populations, which indicates that the islands were settled by different people. The investigators exclude any significant gene flow between the two islands. The closest affinities were with the population of Tuscany. The investigators attribute this closer kinship to a major influx from there in the early and middle Neolithic, which they date to the 8th-6th millennia BP. Subsequently they postulate a population expansion in the Chalcolithic (their 4th millennium BP), which is substantiated by the distribution of Corsican artifacts throughout the Mediterranean. The separation of Corsican and non-Corsican populations falls within rather wide limits: no earlier than 19,000 BP or later than between 4929 and 8746 BP. An indigenous Corsican population had therefore formed by about 3000 BC at latest, in this view. A study in 2002 by Vona and others of 19 genetic markers, 54 alleles, on 1164 persons reached exactly the opposite conclusion: "Corsica also appears to be greatly differentiated from the populations of regions such as France and Tuscany .... The Mediterranean population most comparable to Corsica is Sardinia." Apparently genetic studies of the Corsicans are still exploratory and are not yet reaching definitive evidence on their affinities to other populations. The two studies did draw the same conclusions about the gap between Corse-du-Sud and Haute-Corse. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Prehistory of Corsica」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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