The characteristic buildings of this culture are the
torri ("towers"), megalithic structures similar to the
Sardinian
nuraghes, from which the culture takes its name, and the
castelli ("castles"), more complex buildings that include a wall, a tower and huts. According to preliminary investigations conducted during the 1950s by the French scholar
Roger Grosjean, the Torrean civilization began when, at the end of the second millennium BC, the
Sea People known as
Sherden landed on the island from the
Eastern Mediterranean, subduing the native megalithic population. The Sherden brought
metallurgy to the island and built the
torri, which Grosjean thought were temples dedicated to the worship of fire and the dead. They also erected
statue menhir representing their leaders armed with swords and a horned helmet, similar to the Sherden immortalized in the temple of
Medinet Habu in
Egypt. with possible
Sardinian (
Bonnanaro culture),
North Italian (
Polada culture) and later
Central Italian (
Apennine culture) influences. In fact, according to modern dating, the first towers and castles were built a millennium earlier than Grosjean thought, at the end of the third millennium BC, at the same time or even before the appearance of the first
protonuraghes in Sardinia. Also, contrary to what Grosjean thought, metallurgy had existed in Corsica for centuries before the supposed "arrival of the Sherden near
Porto Vecchio." The Terrina site, near
Aleria, shows that the processing of copper had spread on the island from the early centuries of the third millennium B.C. However, some scholars think that Sherden may have migrated to Corsica from the west (
Sardinia) instead of the east, and that they themselves pushed toward the
Eastern Mediterranean for piracy, possibly in the pay of the
Mycenaean lords. During the
Iron Age, the towers and castles were still occupied, but the relationships with Sardinia become less intense (the characteristic
Nuragic bronze statuettes are absent in Corsica), while in the north there were increasing contacts with
Tuscany and
Liguria. The Torrean civilization disappeared in the middle of the
first millennium BC, when Corsica was settled by the
Ligurians, the
Greeks of
Phocaea, the
Etruscans, the
Carthaginians, and then the
Romans. The Torrean people might be associated with the
Corsi, a people that lived in
Corsica and north-east
Sardinia during
Roman times, described as one of the main tribal groups of the two islands together with the Sardinian
Ilienses and the
Balares. The
Corsi were in turn divided into several other tribes that dwelt in Corsica: the
Belatoni,
Cervini,
Cilibensi,
Cumanesi,
Licinini,
Macrini,
Opini,
Subasani,
Sumbri,
Tarabeni,
Titiani, and
Venacini. Potential
Corsi tribes in Nuragic Sardinia included the proper
Corsi, from whom
Corsica derives its name, and who dwelt at the extreme north-east of
Sardinia; Longonensi; and the
Tibulati, who dwelt at the extreme north of Sardinia, around the ancient city of
Tibula. ==Politics==