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This dissertation is a multi-scalar archaeological inquiry into the re-making of social order in a single province, or satrapy, of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 550-330 BC). The work forwards a perspective on the study of imperial provinces that focuses on social logics, the practical understandings that articulate structures, social roles, and temporal rhythms within historical contexts, as mediated by places and things. The geographic focus of this research is the mountainous region extending from the northern Euphrates eastward to the Lesser Caucasus, a “highland satrapy” which the Achaemenid kings appear to have called Armenia. Through investigations in this little-explored province, the work advances a new direction in the archaeology of early empires generally, and the study of the Achaemenid empire in particular, that examines the workings of political and social life within incorporated territories. This research departs from approaches to imperial provinces framed around macro-structural and centrifugal phenomena such as strategies of control and the influence of imperial institutions on provinces. I focus instead on how imperial formations are made through practices and relations of power in routine human associations that are significantly shaped by pre-conquest sociopolitical traditions. During the late second and first millennia BC, across the rugged landscapes of the highlands, stone fortresses set atop craggy hilltops were the pivot around which society was ordered and transformed. This social archaeology examines the ways in which the changing position of the fortress was a part of changing social logics following the emergence of Achaemenid imperial power. Local leaders pursued new practices in new kinds of spaces that reproduced their authority and connected them to one other, to their antecedents, and to the wider empire. The study explores three scales of analysis, beginning with a single site in modern central Armenia named Tsaghkahovit, where I conducted original fieldwork. From this intimate view on a single town, the work expands to a regional scale, comparing survey data from across the highlands to examine broad-scale change. The work then culminates in the examination of the highest echelons of satrapal authority in the revitalized former Urartian fortresses of Erebuni and Altıntepe.