I’ve noticed that some Maven dependencies have release dates earlier than the components they depend on. I’m investigating the reasons behind this and suspect that the upstream component might have existed elsewhere before being pushed to Maven Central. Do you have any insights on how to explore this further? A potential reason for this could be that the upstream component was in existence somewhere else, years/months/days before it was uploaded to Maven Central. Is there a way to check if a component existed somewhere else years or months before it was uploaded to Maven central?

I have checked if the earliest released version of the upstream component was released before the component that depend on it, but there are still cases where the earliest released upstream component came after the component that depend on it.