Someone pointed out that we now have the means to trace the gold to its source (if the source still exists and is known; many of the ancients exploited gold deposits to exhaustion. As a side note, they used sheepskins to trap heavy gold particles in placer deposits, hence the legend of the Golden Fleece). Similarly, we can learn a lot from the kinds of alloys used as well as the tools and techniques used for fashioning both metals and stones used as adornment.
I keep looking for eastern links to Etruscan gold work. The Etruscans left many mysteries when they were replaced by(or evolved into) the Romans. They arrived in Tuscany, presumably from Asia Minor, sometime around 1,000 bce, with a highly-evolved metalworking and civil engineering technology. Their technique of bonding patterns of tiny gold spheres to objects like vases without use of solder (called "granulation") was lost for centuries and wasn't replicated until around the 1960s. Even so, there are open questions as to how they did it with what we know of their technology.
I've seen examples of granulation in Asian gold work at museums that may pre-date the Etruscans. Have you run across any references to it in your research on the Scythians?