Issedones

According to what the Greek traveller was told at Delos in the second century CE, the Arimaspi were north of the Issedones, and the Scythians were south of them: At Prasiai [in Attika] is a temple of Apollo.

[6] The Issedones were known to Greeks as early as the late seventh century BCE, for Stephanus Byzantinus[7] reports that the poet Alcman mentioned "Essedones" and Herodotus reported that a legendary Greek of the same time, Aristeas son of Kaustrobios of Prokonnessos (or Cyzicus), had managed to penetrate the country of the Issedones and observe their customs first-hand.

The archeologists E. M. Murphy and J. P. Mallory of the Queen's University of Belfast have argued (Antiquity, 74 (2000):388-94) that Herodotus was mistaken in his interpretation of what he imagined to be cannibalism.

Recently excavated sites in southern Siberia, such as the large cemetery at Aymyrlyg in Tuva containing more than 1,000 burials of the Scythian period, have revealed accumulations of bones often arranged in anatomical order.

Marks on some bones show cut-marks of a nature indicative of defleshing, but most appear to suggest disarticulation of adult skeletons.

Burial of the dismembered remains would have taken place in fall after returning to winter camp, but before the ground was frozen completely.