Old cultivating practices may have prompted an ascent in the outflow of heat-retaining gasses like carbon dioxide and methane -- a pattern that has proceeded since a recent study has found.

Without this human impact, by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the planet would have likely seen another ice age, researchers said.

Millenia back, old ranchers cleared land to plant wheat and maize and potatoes. They overflowed fields to plant rice and started to raise animals. Accidentally, they may have been modifying the climate of the Earth.

"Had it not been for early agriculture, Earth's climate would be significantly cooler today," said Stephen Vavrus, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US.