The branching (resp. merging) space functor of a flow is a left Quillen functor. The associated derived functor allows to define the branching (resp. merging) homology of a flow. It is then proved that this homology theory is a dihomotopy invariant and that higher dimensional branchings (resp. mergings) satisfy a long exact sequence. ; Comment: 24 pages and 6 figures ; cf http://www.emis.de/journals/HHA/