Scythian Armour

[MeinPanzer]

well, on this page of Univ of Washington the author, Daniel Waugh says re Pazyryk : 'on the whole these dates are younger than the original ones proposed by Rudenko, but as Stepanova points out, it is possible that they may be further revised.' via E. V. Stepanova, "Evoliutsiia konskogo snariazheniia i otnositel'naia khronologiia pamiatnikov Pazyrykskoi kul'tury" [Evolution of horse harnesses and relative chronology of the monuments of the Pazyryk culture], Arkheologicheskie vesti (St. Petersburg), No. 13 (2006): p. 104.
http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/mu ... zyryk.html

so it appears that nothing is final yet

Well, the dating of several pieces at least is final. See this short report:

http://www.ipp.phys.ethz.ch/research/ex ... 2000/3.pdf

"Absolute age: BC 260 – 250," at least for the famous Pazyryk carpet.

In another article, entitled "DENDROCHRONOLOGY AND RADIOCARBON DATING METHODS IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDIES OF SCYTHIAN SITES," the authors conclude with this statement:

The most recent results of 14C
dating of Pazyryk Barrow 2 attributes its construction date to the beginning of the 3rd century BC
(F G McCormac and J P Mallory, personal communication 1999). We have carried out the 14C age
measurements of the D-5 sample from Pazyryk Barrow 2 (Le-5558–Le-5563). The log was split in
6 pieces, each one including 20 tree rings. To determine the absolute age of the sample, the 14C dates
were calibrated with the use of the bidecadal calibration curve (Pearson and Stuiver 1993; Stuiver
and Pearson 1993). The position of the experimental points relative to the calibration curve was
determined by means of minimization of χ2 statistics (Zaitseva et al. 1998). According to our estimation
the construction date of Pazyryk Barrow 2 is 300 BC with an error of 25–35 yr (2 σ). See
Figure 2 for details. Only a few 14C dates are available for the Dogee-Baary-2 burials (Sementsov et
al. 1998; Görsdorf et al. 1998). According to these data, the construction date of the tombs is the end
6th to the beginning of the 4th century BC. Thus the results of the comparative analysis of the age
of the Dogee-Baary-2 and Pazyryk sites are in agreement with the results based on 14C dating. The
construction date of Barrow 8 of the Dogee-Baary-2 Group should be attributed to the first third of
the 4th century BC. Indirectly obtained evidence confirms this new assessment of the absolute age
of the Pazyryk barrows and supports the revised chronology of Iron Age for the entire area of southern
Siberia and central Asia.

This is also in line with a few new finds in the Mongolian part of the Altai mountains. Two new warrior burials have been found, and both date to the late fourth or early third century BC, with very close parallels in material culture to the famous barrows.