The habit nowadays is to call any culture a “civilization.” The Scythians were nomads and savages, by the traditional definition, as they had no written language of their own.
well if the abornigies or the bush people get civilizations why not the Scythians?
"New discoveries in Syria suggest a little-known people fueled the rise of civilization"
FWIW, IMHO there’s no chance the Hurrians and the Scythians were the same folks.
The Scythians were as literate as most groups of their time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythian_languages