tarim

I recently read mallory's book on the Tarim basin mummies. He puts
forth many idea about the early indo-europeans. However i do have a
problem with the soundness of the methodology in his identification
of scythians, sakas, and sarmatians as indo-europeans. I read a web
page suggesting these people are all ural altaics, or turannians.

Do people here have opinions on how firm these linguistic
identifications are?