“Based on documentary sources, abandoning horsemeat consumption is widely associated with the emergence of Christianity in medieval Europe,” the study’s authors write. They analyzed the percentage of horse remains in Medieval garbage dumps within the settlement to calculate if a site had a greater-than-average amount of horse remains. The team found that the percentage of horse remains in refuse pits is relatively high. Horse consumption began to decrease after the Mongol invasion of 1241–42. Changes in the percentage of horse remains by settlement type in assemblages numbering more than 500 bones of livestock.