There was a paper published on a DVCS using UUCP (!)
 in 1980:
&quot;A distributed version control system for wide area networks &quot; B O Donovan,  <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ieeexplore.ieee.org&#x2F;xpl&#x2F;articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&amp;arnumber=62656" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ieeexplore.ieee.org&#x2F;xpl&#x2F;articleDetails.jsp?reload=tru...</a>