Her existence and her preservation make a specific argument about the past that challenges assumptions.

The assumption that women in ancient nomadic societies were uniformly subordinate to men — that the steppe warrior culture was exclusively male, that women were peripheral figures in the social order — is challenged by the Ice Maiden’s burial.

Whatever her specific role, her burial’s richness establishes that high-status women in Pazyryk society received elaborate, horse-accompanied burials that marked them as individuals of importance.

This does not prove gender equality in the modern sense.