Some Scythian bows were made this way, with horizontal laminations of small pieces. Others were made from vertical laminations of small pieces – wood on the left and right, horn in the center, and the whole spiral wrapped in sinew.
Why small pieces? They were probably trying to avoid the hassles (in 300 BC) of steam bending longer pieces into the appropriate shapes. They used smaller, naturally shaped pieces of wood and then matched those shapes with smaller pieces of horn.