The high-pressure Maksyutov Complex in the southern Urals contains a regionally coherent crustal unit that experienced peak metamorphic conditions of $ 2 GPa ( $ 60 km) and $ 550 C at 378 AE 6 Ma. Exhumation of the high-pressure unit occurred under retrograde blueschist and middle/lower greenschist facies conditions, indicating a pronounced cooling during decompression. The rise of the high-pressure unit to a mid-crustal depth ( $ 20 km) was accommodated along retrograde ductile shear zones that formed in quartz-rich lithologies. Rb-Sr white mica ages from these quartzitic mylonites cluster at $ 360 Ma, while Ar-Ar ages are more variable, between 370 AE 7 and 344 AE 7 Ma. We interpret the Rb-Sr ages to date the mylonitic deformation in the retrograde shear zones and infer that by 360 AE 8 Ma the high-pressure Maksyutov Complex has reached mid-crustal depth. The pressure±temperature±time data suggest an average exhumation rate of 2 ( 2 / À 0.5 ) mm a À1 for the ®rst exhumation stage from 60 to 20 km. Using our Rb-Sr data and published ®ssion-track data, a slower exhumation rate of 0.3 ( AE 0.1) mm a À 1 is inferred for the rise of the high-pressure rocks from the middle to the upper crust. The moderate exhumation rate of 2 mm a À 1 is in accordance with published thermal models, which demonstrate that a relatively slow exhumation is required for high-pressure rocks to experience syn-decompressional cooling. Such syn-decompressional cooling, as inferred for the Maksyutov Complex, contrasts with isothermal decompression observed in many other regional high-pressure terrains that experienced a relatively fast exhumation. The two main factors that controlled the unusual thermal evolution of the southern Urals may be the low radiogenic heat production of the crust and the stable, $ 200 km thick lithospheric mantle beneath the orogen.