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Parts of Amazon basins may not have always been the bustling rain forests that we see today, according to a new study. 

The new study has found evidence that in a few hundred years, the land may have radically switched from a smattering of wide savannas to the "timeless" rainforests of today. 

The study also details a new theory as to how ancient peoples who led agricultural-based lives shaped the Amazon basin. 

Lead research John Carson along with his team had headed into the Amazon to determine what kind of crops ancient Amerindian groups cultivated and how such practices could impact an ancient rainforest. 

Instead they came up with a different finding that the rainforest may not have been there then.

"Rather than cutting or burning down huge swathes of jungle, the early Amazonian people simply took advantage of a naturally more open landscape," he said in a statement. "Our analysis shows that they were growing maize and other food crops. They also likely caught fish, and there's evidence from other parts of the Bolivian Amazon for people farming Muscovy ducks and Amazonian river turtles."

The study has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).