Abstract
If it's never superfluous to point out that African societies are made of the same historical fabric as all other societies, it's because Africa's pasts have long remained unrecognized. To be a historian or archaeologist of Africa, then, is to unclutter the past as much as to grasp its diversity : rich oral literature and written documentation, plurality of languages and religions, technical and social inventiveness, cohabitation of political forms. Attentive to the multiple historical trajectories that manifest themselves there, François-Xavier Fauvelle invites us to listen to what the history of Africa teaches us.
