Volume I of the PRE-COLUMBIAN BURIAL RITES series consists of a comprehensive examination and discussion of mortuary behaviors by the prehistoric inhabitants of the Southwest Region of North America. The study of burial practice is useful to the discussion of the complexities of population traits and characteristics because on a societal scale, similarity or differentiation of patterning in the disposal of the dead has been considered one of the basic identifying "signatures" used to distinguish cultural populations. Because burial of the dead is a ritually-oriented, ideologically-grounded rite of passage, its very nature is conservative, steeped in tradition and resistant to change. It is possible and vital, therefore, to identify repetitive characteristics of burial customs. For this purpose a mortuary sample of 17,587 burials from 385 mortuary sites was utilized to address the range of variability and consistency within the four subdivisions of the Southwest Region that includes the Hohokam, Mogollon, Ancestral Puebloan, and Northern Rio Grande populations.