distrowatch maintains records of which version of software are shipped with most linux distros, and they have historical records going back a long time, so for example perl versions in Debian:

sid    testing    5.12.4
wheezy        5.12.4
squeeze        5.10.1
lenny        5.10.0
etch        5.8.8
sarge        5.8.4
woody        5.6.1
potato        5.4.5
slink        5.4.4
hamm        5.4.4
bo        5.3.7
rex        5.3.7
buzz    5.2
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