atavism

a reappearance of an earlier characteristic; throwback

Much of the modern art movement was an atavism to a style of art found only in small villages through Africa and South America.

It is generally called atavism, or better, systematic atavism, and the clearest cases are those in which a quality which is latent in the greater part of a family or group, becomes manifest in one of its members.

The term atavism is employed to express the reappearance of characters, physical or psychical, in the individual, or in the race, which are supposed to have been possessed at one time by remote ancestors.

Note that you can build your GRE vocabulary via Vocab Assistant app hosted in facebook messenger.