Animal style art is an approach to decoration found from Ordos culture to Northern Europe in the early Iron Age, and the barbarian art of the Migration Period, characterized by its emphasis on animal motifs. The zoomorphic style of decoration was used to decorate small objects by warrior-herdsmen, whose economy was based on breeding and herding animals, supplemented by trade and plunder. Animal art is a more general term for all art depicting animals.

Scythian art makes great use of animal motifs, one component of the "Scythian triad" of weapons, horse-harness, and Scythian-style wild-animal art. The cultures referred to as Scythian-style included the Cimmerian and Sarmatian cultures in European Sarmatia and stretched across the Eurasian steppe north of the Near East to the Ordos culture of Inner Mongolia. These cultures were extremely influential in spreading many local versions of the style.

Steppe jewellery features various animals, including stags, cats, birds, horses, bears, wolves and mythical beasts. The gold figures of stags in a crouching position with legs tucked beneath the body, head upright and muscles bunched tight to give the impression of speed, are particularly impressive. The "looped" antlers of most figures are a distinctive feature, not found in Chinese images of deer. The species represented has seemed to many scholars to be the reindeer, which was not found in the regions inhabited by the steppe peoples at this period. The largest of these were the central ornaments for shields, while others were smaller plaques probably attached to clothing. The stag appears to have had a special significance for the steppe peoples, perhaps as a clan totem. The most notable of these figures include examples from:

Another characteristic form is the openwork plaque including a stylized tree over the scene at one side, of which two examples are illustrated here.^[where?] Later large Greek-made pieces (Greek artists interacted with Scythians via Greek colonies on the northern Black Sea coast) often include a zone showing Scythian men apparently going about their daily business, in scenes more typical of Greek art than of nomad-made pieces. Some scholars have attempted to attach narrative meanings to such scenes, but this remains speculative.

Although gold was widely used by the ruling élite of the various Scythian tribes, the predominant material for the various animal forms was bronze. The bulk of these items were used to decorate horse-harness, leather belts and personal clothing. In some cases these bronze animal-figures when sewn onto stiff leather jerkins and belts, helped to act as armour.

The use of the animal form went further than just ornament, these seemingly imbuing the owner of the item with similar prowess and powers of the animal which was depicted. Thus the use of these forms extended onto the accoutrements of warfare, be they swords, daggers, scabbards, or axes.

A distinct Permian style of bronze or copper alloy objects from around the 5th–10th centuries AD are found near the Ural Mountains and the Volga and Kama rivers in present-day Russia.

The study of Germanic zoomorphic decoration was pioneered by Bernhard Salin in a work published in 1904. Salin classified animal art from roughly 400 to 900 AD into three phases. The origins of these different phases remain the subject of debate; developing trends in late-Roman popular provincial art was an element, as were earlier traditions of the nomadic Asiatic steppe peoples. Styles I and II are found widely across Europe in the art of the "barbarian" peoples during the Migration Period.