This text presents an overview of current work and an outline of important unsolved problems in the field of palaeobiology, revealing interactions between the study of fossils and findings in biogeochemistry, genetics, developmental and functional biology, ecology, evolution, systematics and geology. Within the diversity of this research lie the unifying themes that are central to the discipline - the idea that the histories and past behaviours of living systems are key to understanding their workings, and that "deep time" is a perspective palaeobiology alone brings to the study of living things.