Small, portable bronzes of Iron Age populations have been discovered across Eurasia from the Danube to the Amur rivers. Many sites were unearthed under compromised archeological circumstances but only some were discounted or misinterpreted. This paper focuses on diagnostic stag plaques recovered early in the twentieth century from the two lateral ends of the Eurasian steppe. It argues that scholarly assessment of material from northeast China and the Carpathian Basin of Hungary was derailed for nearly a century by mistaken assumptions, Western presumptions and nationalism of 20th century geopolitics.