Sarmatians came in waves with first the Iazyges, closely followed by the Roxolani. The Siraces seemed to be a mixture of nomads and part time farmers and didn’t seem to move west like the other groups and usually lived in hill-forts in the Kuban. They were probably the smallest group but they had a lot of contact with the Greek Black Sea cities and were probably the most Hellenized of the various Sarmatian groups, some even marrying into the various ruling families and were constantly involved in the various wars of these Greek Black Sea city-states to the extent that a lot of their rulers by 2nd Century probably thought of themselves more as Greeks than Siraces & these cities being the final point on the northerly silk routes would have been an entrepot of weapons & goods from the east till destroyed by Goths & Huns.
Then came the Aorsi who seem to have been absorbed by the Alans in the first century. They may have been Alans or ‘As’ all along with the ‘r’ in their name becoming redundant and dropping out over time. Even if they were a separate entity they were eventually absorbed by the Alans or at least the western branch.
As stated above the Siraces seemed to be the most Hellenized because of their location to the Greek city states while the Iazyges in Hungary lacking iron resources seemed to have develop a close relationship with the Quadi and probably adopted a lot of their customs and weaponry and in turn the Quadi nobles developed equestrian skills, so not long after their defeat in 175 AD Marcus allowed the Iazyges to trade with the Roxolani as well as allowing them access to Roman markets so he must have realised that trade was important to keep the peace with the Romans and negate the need for raids.
The Roxolani in turn developed a close relationship with the Dacians who would have been a good source for metal and importantly, salt for the health of their livestock herds. It was no surprise that the Roxolani chose to fight on the side of the Dacians while the Iazyges fought for the Romans as they had previous clashes with the Dacians. The Roxolani also had a close relationship with the Bastarnae as they had to share the massive river deltas so I am assuming that trade and marriage alliances kept the peace amongst the two peoples with an interaction of weapons as well.
The Alans had close relations and there was probably a lot of intermarriage with the Greutungi (Saphrax was probably an Alan) who more so than the Tervingi seemed to have become accomplished horsemen and picked up steppe military tactics and played a major role in the defeat of the Romans at the battle of Adrianople, to the extent that Theodoric Strabo in 478 AD lamented that there was a time when each Greutungi or Ostrogoth as they were by then, had two or three horses but now they have no horses and walk through Thrace like infantrymen. (He was probably referring to their leaders.)
So trade and interaction with their neighbours would have been important to the various groups. If they couldn’t trade for something they probably went on raids and took it. Metal would have been important not only for weapons but for metal to rim the wheels on their wagons which were a deature of all Sarmatian groups and for pots and cauldrons for cooking. They desired not only metal for weapons & arrowheads but also certain luxury items, mirrors, dyes, wine and decorations, either for themselves or their horses. The Alans in particular loved the colour red for their horse bridles and leather and traded with the Persians for lac a dye which the Persians got from India and Asia at least that is the story going by Armenian sources. But overall they were pretty self sufficient.
Some of the Alans who travelled west in the late fourth and fifth centuries, were probably very Romanised by the battle of Chalons with armour and weapons probably produced by the Romans so would have looked a lot different to the Alans of the late 4th century. Alans in particular had a reputation for being fine smiths even in the 13th century, producing cuirasses & swords so the weapon-making skills seemed to have passed on but raw materials were scarce & their societies, being mainly pastoral were not geared for organized metal ore production. :-)
Regards
Michael Kerr.