Nikolay Kradin's major contributions belong to three fields:
anthropology and social history of the Eurasian nomads;
political anthropology and theory of the state formation;
Social archaeology of East and Inner Asia cultures;
Among other things Kradin has demonstrated that an alternative to the state seems to be represented by the supercomplex chiefdoms created by some nomads of Eurasia – the number of the structural levels within such chiefdoms appear to be equal, or even to exceed those within the average state, but they have an entirely different type of political organization and political leadership; such type of political entities do not appear to have been ever created by the agriculturists.
social archaeology of the nomadic empires.
Kradin has written over 11 books and 400 articles dealing with his research interests. These include Nomadic Societies, The Xiongnu Empire, Political Anthropology, Chinggis Khan Empire, Nomads of Eurasia, Nomads of Inner Asia in Transition, History of Khitans Empire Liao.
Selected recent publications in English
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Kradin, Nikolay N. 2000. Nomadic Empires in Evolutionary Perspective. In . Ed. by N.N. Kradin, A.V. Korotayev, Dmitri Bondarenko, V. de Munck, and P.K. Wason. Vladivostok: Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; reprinted in: The Early State, its Alternatives and Analogues. Ed. by Leonid Grinin et al.. Volgograd: Uchitel', 2004.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2002. .
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2003. Nomadic Empires: Origins, Rise, Decline. In Nomadic Pathways in Social Evolution. Ed. by N.N. Kradin, Dmitri Bondarenko, and T. Barfield. Moscow: Center for Civilizational Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2006. Archaeological Criteria of Civilization. Social Evolution & History 5: 89-108.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2006. .
Kradin, Nikolay N., Skrynnikova Tatiana D. 2006. Why do we call Chinggis Khan's Polity 'an Empire'. Ab Imperio 2006 : 89-118.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2008. Structure of Power in Nomadic Empires of Inner Asia: Anthropological Approach. In: . Ed. By L.E.Grinin, D.D.Beliaev, and A.V.Korotayev. Moscow: URSS, 2008, p. 98-124.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2008. Early State Theory and the Evolution of Pastoral Nomads. Social Evolution & History 7 : 107-130.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2008. Transformation of Peasant Pastoralism among the Aginsky Buryats, end of XX – Beginning of XXI Centuries. In: Proceedings of the International Conference "Dialog between Cultures and Civilizations: Present State and Perspectives of Nomadism in a Globalizing World. Ed. by J. Janzen and B. Enkhtuvshin. Ulaanbaatar, 2008: 153-158.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2009. State Origins in Anthropological Thought. Social Evolution & History 8 : 25-51.
Kradin, Nikolay N., Skrynnikova Tatiana D. 2009. "Stateless Head": Notes on Revisionism in the Studies of Nomadic Societies. Ab Imperio 2009 : 117-128.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2010. Between Khans and Presidents. Anthropology of Politics in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Social Evolution & History 9 : 150-172.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2011. A Panorama of Social Archaeology in Russia. In: Comparative Archaeologies: A Sociological View of the Science of the Past. Ed. by L.R. Lozny. New York: Springer, 2011: 243-271.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2011. Post-Soviet Power in Anthropological Perspective. In: State, Society, and Transformation. Ed. by B. A. Mitchneck. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2011: 50-76.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2011. Stateless Empire: The Structure of the Xiongnu Nomadic Super-Complex Chiefdom. In: Xiongnu Archaeology: Multidisciplinary Perspectives of the First Steppe Empire in Inner Asia. Ed. by U. Brosseder and B. Miller. Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn, 2011: 77-96.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2013. Chinggis Khan, World System Analysis and Preindustrial Globalization. Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar, No 15: 169-188.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2013. Criteria of Complexity in Evolution: Cross-Cultural Study in Archaeology of Prehistory. Social Evolution & History12 : 28-50.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2014. Nomadic Empires in Inner Asia. In: Complexity of Interaction Along the Eurasian Steppe Zone in the First Millennium CE. Ed. by J.Bemmann, and M.Schmauder. Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn, 2015: 11-48.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2014. Nomads of Inner Asia in Transition. Moscow: URSS..
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2015.The Ecology of Inner Asian Pastoral Nomadism. In: The Ecology of Pastoralism. Ed. By N. Kardulias. Boulder: University Press of Colorado: 41-70.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2015. Mongols Empire and Debates of the Nomadic State Origins. In: ‘My Life is like the Summer Rose’, Maurizio Tosi e l’Archeologia come modo di vivere/ Papers in honour of Maurizio Tosi for his 70th birthday. Ed. by C.C. Lamberg-Karlofsky, B. Genito and B. Cerasetti. Oxford: Archaeopress : 369-375.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2016. Archaeology of Deportation: Eurasian Steppe Example. In: Central Eurasia in the Middle Ages. Studies in Honour of Peter B. Golden. Ed. by I.Zimonyi and O.Karatay. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag: 209-219.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2017. Heterarchy and Hierarchy Among the Ancient Mongolian Nomads. In: Chiefdoms: Yesterday and Today. Ed. by R.L.Carneiro, L.E.Grinin, and A.V.Korotayev. New York: Eliot Werner Publications Inc.: 155-176.
Guzev, Mikhail, Kradin, Nikolay N., Nikitina, Evgeniia. 2017. The Imperial Curve of Large Polities. Social Evolution & History 16 : 110–123.
Kradin, Nikolay N. 2018. Nomads and the Theory of Civilizations. In: Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis. Eurasian Explorations. Ed. by Johann P. Arnason and Chris Hann. Albany: State University of New York Press: 303-322.
Turchin, Petr, et al. 2018. Quantitative Historical Analyses Uncover a Single Dimension of Complexity that Structures Global Variation in Human Social Organization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 : 144-151.
de Barros Damgaard, Peter et. al. . 2018. 137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes. Nature 557: 369–374.
