The depositional and metamorphic ages and provenances of the Ailaoshan (ALS) Group in the Ailaoshan-Red River (ALS-RR) shear zone, southwestern South China Block (SCB), were investigated to constrain the tectonic history of the southwestern SCB. In this study, we use petrology, geochemical analysis, zircon cathodoluminescence imaging and U-Pb geochronology to analyse samples of quartzite, garnet-bearing two-mica schist and metapelite. The age spectra of detrital zircon grains from these metasediments show two dominant age peaks at 550–424 Ma and 876–730 Ma and two subordinate peaks at 970–955 Ma and ~2450 Ma. The youngest peak, corresponding to the early Palaeozoic, accounts for more than 20% of the total dates and constrains the deposition of the ALS Group to the Palaeozoic rather than the Palaeoproterozoic as traditionally thought. Moreover, two peaks of metamorphic ages corresponding to the Permo-Triassic and Cenozoic were also identified, and these ages document the tectonothermal events associated with the Indosinian collision between the Indochina Block and the SCB and the Himalayan collision between the Indian and Asian plates. Geochemical data suggest that the provenances of the ALS Group were dominated by continental arc and recycled metasedimentary rocks. The comparison of probability density distribution plots of the detrital zircon U-Pb age data indicates that the Neoproterozoic?detritus in the ALS Group was probably derived from the arc-related Neoproterozoic intrusive bodies in the northwestern and southwestern SCB. Furthermore, the early Palaeozoic detritus might have been sourced from eroded early Palaeozoic strata and magmatic plutons in Cathaysia and volcanic rocks in the western Indochina Block.