I have a strong interest in tattoos, and was reading a bit about the tattoos found on some Iron Age mummies in Siberia. They were on the bodies of nobles of the Pazyryk culture. There are many aspects of this which interest me, but a particular article I stumbled across by Gala Argent (2013) caught my eye especially. The author argued that other researchers have taken an anthrocentric view of analyzing the tattoos and offered the perspective of someone who rides horses and understands the mutualistic relationship invovled in this activity. For reference, these are the tattoos in question:

Argent highlights that not all cultures have relationships of dominance over animals, and that the Pazyryk people and their horses would have been highly interdependent on each other. Considering these nobles were buried alongside their adorned horses, there is evidence of considerable respect for their equine companions. Argent makes the argument that the animals depicted in these tattoos were not meant to be mythical creatures as some other researchesr have suggested, but instead greatly revered horses adorned with headdresses and symbolic horns. The paper was an intruiging read for me! Admittedly, I know very little about archeology. Maybe it's all phoey! Who knows. Not me.

Source: Argent, G. (2013). Inked: Human-Horse Apprenticeship, Tattoos, and Time in the Pazyryk World. Society & Animals, 21(2), 178–193. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685306-12341301