convergence

A phenomenon whereby two similar genetic profiles are independently produced in unrelated populations. A coincidental match without historical significance. An example is the Atlantic Modal Haplotype, which occurs in equally high frequencies in Northwest Spain and Ireland, the reason being that both of these geographical locations lie on the margins of Europe and experienced similar genetic drift. Another example is the resemblance of East Asian DNA to Native American, conceivably due to a common deep ancestry shared by the two peoples tens of thousands of years ago.