I didn't suggest they were anything else, but they had at least significant cultural influences. Like you find the horse breed, horse bits, warrior gear, weapons etc. from the Thraco-Cimmerian horizon in Este. As well as a lot of contacts to Fr�g and other East Hallstatt groups from Austria, which were Basarabi influenced.
This doesn't make them anything else but Urnfielders and between Italics and Illyrians ethnically, in my opinion. These are just influences and contacts to the Eastern Urnfield and Thraco-Cimmerian groups, which may have brought some migration, some gene flow. More than in the neighbouring Illyrians proper which had less such contacts and were not part of these networks (Urnfield, Hallstatt).
They were so from the start, because Noua-Sabatinovka was their influence and opponent at the same time. Their direct neighbour and influence was coming from the mixed Noua-Wietenberg group in Transylvania. Its even possible they were a formative element of G�va in a way, but rather they were the opponents from which they still learnt something I guess.
Later they had strong influences from the Cimmerians, obviously, but not everywhere as much, and the Scythians - same pattern.
So yes, Iranian influences were there all the time since the earliest stage (Pre-G�va).
I hope that you know that Thraco-Cimmerian might just denote more like a cultural, innovation influence. What do these people share though is through the Urnfielder Culture common ancestry, the Este descends or share a common ancestry with Proto-VIllanovan, the Proto-Villanova has been noted before to share similarities with Gava and Dubovac-Zuto-Brdo/Grla-Mara. Though by all means this should not mean common Y-DNA, partial shared yes.
How i see and reflect on things is that E-V13 scretched into these culture but more inland Central Balkans to Carpathian Mountains.
Vatin/Grla-Mara/Dubovac and even perhaps Vatya and Brnjica would represent a mixed E-V13 groups with other Y-DNA, while the Gava core should represent a group explicitly carrying E-V13 haplogroup (if i am right). I am just not sure if some E-V13 was before Middle Bronze Age in Cruceni-Belegis and Vatin/Grla Mara or were the Szeremle group who were pushed from Tumulus warriors during their conquest of Pannonia and Southern Central Europe. Could be that Szeremle group who came from Tisza river were part of the story of E-V13, and the other part is the Channeled-Ware rise during Bronze to Iron Age transition who technically imposed themselves upon Tumulus and Encrusted Pottery People but also to the Szeremle/Vatin and the rest causing the domino effect all around and the so called Aegean migration. This migrations probably already started during Middle Bronze Age but they were intensified after the Gava and Tumulus clash down the Danube.