A review of the geochronological literature on the Damara Orogen indicates an extended period of deposition on a rifting and stretching continental crust lasting several hundred million years until about 600 Ma ago. This relatively quiet period was followed by a second phase of rapid comression, crustal thickening, uplift, metamorphism and very voluminous granite intrusions between 550 and 510 Ma ago. The peak of regional metamorphism seems to have occurred around 530 Ma ago over the whole width of the orogen. An area of granites of relatively young Pb/Sr ages (around 470 Ma) exists in the northern Central Zone of the orogen.