heavy cavalry engaging heavy cavalry

[Alanus]

So do you think the heavier cavalry of Sargats were probably developed to combat Scythian horse archers?

I think the Sargats developed heavy cavalry to protect themselves from their southern neighbors, the Massagetae. It's probably a chicken or egg question. However, new wrinkles in armor and weapons probably gave them an edge over the Scythians. As we know, Scythians used short swords-- not the most effective slashing cavalry weapon-- while the Sargats/Issedones had long-swords. Also, the new composite bow had syahs, or "ears" which give arrows an extra "punch" of speed at "take-off." The Sargatskaya culture was a combination of forest hunter-gatherers (the indigenous inhabitants, and not Indo-Iranian) under an Indo-Iranian speaking overlordship. They were a kurgan culture, and the elite practiced skull deformation, both men and women. More weapons are found in Sargat (and Sarmatian) female graves than found in Scythian ones. This duality alone gave the Sarmats an edge. I found information through Natalia Berseneva's chapter in Are All Warriors Male? Gender Roles on the Ancient Eurasian Steppe, 2008, edited by Linduff and Rubinson. PDF online.

I found the illustrations online while googling Sarmatskaya culture. Prior to this, I had seen the drawings in articles by Novasibdom.ru History; but they are in Russian. Also, Simonenko shows one illustration-- this one:

[attachment=9807]DSC_0020_2014-05-06.JPG[/attachment]

To Evan,
The reason the Sargats discontinued bone armor was due to new techniques-- iron forging. The culture dates back to the 6th century BCE in the forest-steppe zone just east of the Urals. This is exactly where Herodotus placed them. The real advantage of a asymmetrical bow is a shorter lower section, easier to swing while on horseback. The syahs make for a longer bow; but if it is built to "zero tiller," the bow is extremely accurate. Longer bows are not more powerful than short bows; both can be constructed in draw-weights that easily exceed 100 pounds of pull. But a bow with syahs will give a faster release. Steppe warriors developed bodkins in the mid first millennium BC, and this precipitated advances in armor as a counter-action.