Two places to look for such information on CRAN:
- Where a fair amount of information needs to be given (like exactly which
versions have been removed), there may be a README in the Archive
directory. E.g. http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/sdcTable/
README , and I have added one for Rglpk.
- There is a DCF file http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/PACKAGES.in
which acts as the database which R CMD check --as-cran consults. That
contains concise records of archival and removal. Its coverage is pretty
good for the last three years.