Origin of the Alans

[Merlkir]

1) Right. I'm about half way through "The Hunter, The Stag.." and I see a difference. Jacobson-Tepfer shares her interpretation of spiritual beliefs and in places get quite speculative. BUT, she documents everything meticulously (which I understand is not the point in a forum thread) and she still talks in current archaeological terms when she speaks of populations and people. I've yet to see her extensively connect material findings to linguistic, DNA or historical references.
Why is this not done a lot? Because sometimes DNA carries with it culture and languages, but not always. 

 These two nearly identical illustrations are not ambiguous, do not link to other Scytho-Sarmatian cultures

I'm not sure that's entirely true though.

- I'm aware of the rhyton panel from the Bosphorus.  http://www.anthroglobe.org/docs/Sergei/s...4_fig4.gif
- then a Bosporan stele in Kerch: http://www.anthroglobe.org/docs/Sergei/s...4_fig1.gif
http://historylib.org/historybooks/Valer.../i_091.jpg
- a Bosporan grave mural also in Kerch: http://www.anthroglobe.org/docs/Sergei/s...4_fig5.gif

- I've seen it likened to the Hermitage belt plaques (it might've even been Jacobson who made the connection): 
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564...3e7ccf.jpg
- the Sakhnovka plaque: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564...107f5f.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/ori...e9b2f6.png
- the Chertomlyk plaque: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564...27b2b1.jpg
- these two plaques: http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot/t...7f3df62586
- the Kul Oba plaque: https://rhr.revues.org/docannexe/image/7665/img-2.png
- potentially this plaque also (another one from Chertomlyk) http://www.ka2.ru/under/graphic/atlantid...tomlyk.jpg
-there's the Karagodeuashkh headdress with a rather similar scene (though from a frontal perspective): https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564...41e707.jpg

Now for the non-scytho-siberian ones:
- there's a Hittite rhyton with a very similar scene: http://histoiredelantiquite.net/wp-conte...or-col.png
- Minoan ring: http://www.minoanatlantis.com/pix/Minoan_Gold_Seal.jpg
http://potnia.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/...-Kopi1.jpg
- and another one: http://madamepickwickartblog.com/wp-cont...crete3.jpg

I found many of the s-s ones through Leland Guthrie's thesis (who basically summarises Jacobson-Tepfer). His idea is that these depict people honoring or communicating with the goddess through ritualized drinking from a vessel  in front of the Tree of Life (which is a common motif in almost all of them), sometimes connected to sacrifice (human or otherwise).
Jacobson-Tepfer emphasizes that deer, a predator and a bird of prey are all death/rebirth related. Many of these depictions have birds of prey, the Hittite one even has a deer (two actually, one dead at the base of the tree, possibly a sacrifice. The othere is speculated to bear a fertility god on its back, which is a very similar function), though most of the s-s ones come from the later periods at which point Jacobson-Tepfer speculates the Deer goddess fully transformed into her anthropomorphic form.

(depending on which details you perceive as significant and which you want to match, you can get something, or nothing out of this.. I've been looking at a lot of Near Eastern artwork and the depictions of libation to a deity, petitioning a deity etc. are very much in this style - a seated deity often next to the Tree of Life, guardian or servant animals, celestial objects and the petitioners or participants in the ritual. Especially seals and steles from Iran, by Hittites, Kassites and some Babylonian ones. Another analog is the Master/Mistress of animals, depicted often around or over the Tree of Life, holding, wrestling or restraining panthers, deer or ibexes, lions, dragons, serpents, birds etc.
Both of these depiction types, which in Near Eastern context appear in the bronze age, have analogs in Scytho Siberian cultures much later in the iron age. For an example, the Master of Dragons from Tillya Tepe, attributed to the Kushans/Yuezhi.)

edit: This is really a sidenote, but I thought I remembered a Pazyryk-Persian connection: Rudenko identified this textile (from barrow 5, the same as the big carpet) as women in Persian (or sometimes also called Assyrian, though not sure how accurate that is) costume praying. That thing in the middle looks suspiciously like the mushroom-shaped censers in Achaemenid seals and indeed in the Hittite rhyton libation scene.
http://www.karakalpak.com/images/kiym87.jpg
http://www.rugkazbah.com/images/31/image59731595.jpg
Compare the censer and the female costume to this Achaemenid seal: http://www.iranicaonline.org/app/webroot...1-fig1.jpg
I don't own the Rudenko book, but Tamara Talbot-Rice's book "Central Asian Art" says other Pazyryk textiles, like the carpet with a procession of riders, were probably of Achamenid make.
I think it might be difficult to distinguish actual unique Pazyryk/Yuezhi motifs and acquired Iranian influence.  /edit

What does all this mean? I don't know.
I think my point was - it's fine to speculate, but there's a difference between pointing to similarities in spiritual or material cultures in various places and times, possibly hinting at cultural exchange, evolution or influence, and between coming up with hypotheses on vast empires encompassing all of them. 
(for instance, the Tarim city states belonging to a massive Yuezhi kingdom is something I feel is not terribly well substantiated.)

2) The languages. 

But, if we go back to the Bronze age, we find an overlap-- both Andronovo and the Siema-Turbino Phenomenon lapping over Afanasievo-- in which we would see the major language of the Yuezhi confederation speaking Eastern Iranian. The Kushan coins were minted in Bactrian, a Eastern Iranian tongue, and we can extend it to the Aorsi/Arsi/Alan/Ossetic language. So I now believe Tocharian remained in the Tarim, localized.

Again, you're attributing languages to material culture and genetic data.
Do you then think the Tocharian speaking inhabitants of the Tarim were radically different from the Yuezhi? In what ways? More importantly -  where did they come from? 
And if the Yuezhi spoke an Iranian language (supposedly evidenced by Bactrian on Kushan coins), why wasn't this imposed on the Tarim people under Yuezhi rule?
Consider also that there were distinctive East-Iranian languages spoken and written in the western oases - like Khotanese Saka, Choresmian etc. Was proto-Tocharian somehow sandwiched between these and the Yuezhi language zones? 

Mallory and Mair in "The Tarim Mummies" write:
"We can refer to this hypothesis as the Tocharian gambit. It runs something like this. The Yuezhi, who occupied the area from Gaqnsu west tot he tarim basin spoke KA languages (Kuche-Agni = their term for Tocharian). By the time those who migrated west arrived in the Oxus, they had shed KA for an Iranian language or simply took up the expedient course of many foreign rulers and employed the local Iranian language for their administration."

That doesn't sound implausible to me, considering how much the Kushans changed from whatever they once were. They adopted both Hindu and Greek gods into their pantheon, their Buddhist texts were written in Sanskrit (and administrative texts seem to be written in many different Prakrits, which I assume were already established all over their empire by this point - during the Kushan eastwards expansion Prakrit was also adopted in Loulan) and their rulers accepted pre-established divine titles.

Summing up - I don't mean to sound combative or antagonistic. Rather I got a lot out of this thread and if I could myself add anything of value, I'd be happy to do just that.