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[TV4Fun]

This is a philosophical question that I am sure has long concerned dwarfkind, and I am interested in hearing your thoughts. While the origins of the first anvil are lost to the mists of history, some say it was given to us by the gods, some say it was crafted by a legendary dwarf, known only as Urist Anvilbringer, the Spoiled Duck-Roast of Flatulence, who in one particularly depressed mood killed his firstborn son and crafted the first anvil from his bones, exquisitely decorated with rings of his teeth and hair, what use though is an anvil without ore? Ore needs a pick to be mined, and how could one be created in the first place without an anvil? Even if the first anvil came from divine origins, how could we have crafted more without already having some metal? Some have speculated that the first anvils were made of stone, but then one must still ask where that stone came from. Others have speculated that they may have been made from wood, though these folks have largely been executed as suspected elf infiltrators. What do you think are the origins of the first pickaxe? Did the first dwarves carve stone with their bare hands? Did our ancestors have extraterrestrial help to build the first fortress? We must have an answer to this!

[Reverie]

'Modern' anvils aren't strictly necessary to temper with, and I'd imagine early anvils were hard, commonplace objects anyway. If you count for those, the anvil came first.

[Arcvasti]

I'm guessing an iron containing meteor fell and the dwarves adapted it into a smelter, a forge and a pick pretty quickly.

[Talvieno]

A pick. The first dwarf baby sprang from the womb wielding it.

[mnjiman]

Dwarves Beard came first.

[FallenAngel]

The wagon hypotheses don't make any more sense than clay. You can't kill wagons in the actual game, just like you can't gather clay without a kiln.

"Oh but come on, it's minor to just pretend that you could kill them." Sure, but that's no different than
"Oh but come on, it's minor to just pretend that you can gather clay anyway."

If you don't insist on strict possibility, then there are dozens of answers already.
If you DO insist on strict possibility, then there are still no answers that I've heard.

It is assumed wagons were created at the beginning - before they were solely used by merchants, they were pulled around by the now-extinct Cave Horse in a symbiotic relationship. The wagon grew cave moss (it's made of a wood-like material, seriously), and the Cave Horses turned around on their long, rope-like tails to eat said moss without releasing the wagon.
Dwarves were the first to "tame" wagons. Due to their unusual nature, said taming was actually taming of the Cave Horses. After successful taming of the wagon, dwarves began "butchering" them by killing the Cave Horses connected to them to acquire Wagon Wood. Unlike most remains, Wagon Wood is viable for construction (we already knew this), which was used to create a Carpenter's Workshop and to create the First Axe.
The First Axe was used to fell underground trees - eventually, instead of something random like a goblin cap statue or a tunnel tube flute, a dwarf created the First Pick out of solid wood. Despite being made of wood, it could mine through stone, connecting the link between The First Pick and The Start.

From a thread about reclaim awesomeness that somehow evolved into discussing wagons.
Instead of what humans would have done (killed gabbro men and waited for an artifact anvil), this is much more dwarfy.
The pick came first - it was made out of underground wood, which, while the elves may be concerned about it, is not of elven access. Therefore, an artifact tower-cap pick is perfectly dwarfy - only dwarves in normal games even tap the endless supply of mushrooms.

tl;dr version, for the few who don't want to read tons of text: Wagons were pulled by extinct horse-like animals, dwarves tamed the animals, killed them, scuttling the wagon, and then they used its wood to make a workshop, and then made an axe to get a much more reliable source of wood, and then an artifact pick was created eventually.

[Defacto]

In the beginning, there was Urist, and Urista. Urist got a fell mood and made a bone pickaxe out of Urista, and thus there are no more any female forms of dwarf names (and no more dwarven females, some human scholars say)

The real question is, where did the workshop come from??

Excerpt from the famous ´´Dwarves and me´´ by human scholar-necromancer-drunk Abbey Stonegalleys

[klefenz]

[slight off-topic]
Its fun that you talk about this just as I have recently discovered TerraFirma (a Minecraft mod) which answer this question neatly.
Pick up metal ores scattered as loose stones on the surface. Use a stone as anvil.
[klefenz runs from people yelling "Minecraft heretic!"]

[Tryble]

On the origin of dwarves

The Mountain King destroyed the boulder which raised him and reshaped it into the first anvil.

[Talvieno]

On the origin of dwarves

The Mountain King destroyed the boulder which raised him and reshaped it into the first anvil.

This man speaks truth.

[Xazo-Tak]

The wooden pick and anvil came first.
A Dwarf then took these from the Elves, used them to make a real pick and anvil, and had a bloodbath.

[FallenAngel]

On the origin of dwarves

The Mountain King destroyed the boulder which raised him and reshaped it into the first anvil.

That story is about as inaccurate as the story of the dwarf that decided tree bark tasted like +chopped cat liver biscuit+s.
No self-respecting dwarf would use an elf's head as a replacement or form of a loincloth, unless it has been processed into a skull and turned into clothing with the power of beard.
Coincidentally, the "beard sense" was discovered by Dwarven Philosopher Urist Silverbeard back during the Eleventh Dwarven Renaissance. Its first purpose was to uncover a cavern layer - he was tasked with proving that the miners were right and the mountain was hollow. He went to the food stockpile to get a drink. His beard brushed against the -Tower-cap Barrel-, which only had two units of dwarven wine in it, and was able to sense it not being full and solid without using his eyes.
He ran to the king who was reining and told him about it.
Later, the miners proved that the mountain was hollow, and everyone except Urist Silverbeard, the king, and five soldiers died by way of a Giant Cave Spider.
These seven went on to found a new mountainhome.
Said event also caused the declaration that all groups of dwarves that go out to found a new settlement must be 7 dwarves strong, never weaker, never stronger.

[Authority2]

In a pinch, rock thrones can be used as anvils.
With a pick, a throne can be made easily. Thus, the pick must have come first, probably made from dwarf bone.

[Scruiser]

What do dwarf do when they have no access to iron even late in the history?  I've noticed sometimes the game sticks me with a steel anvil costing 300 as oppose to the 100 iron anvils cost.  Somehow dwarfs are able to directly synthesize iron without steel.  Or the much more logical solution (by Urist's razor which is sharper than Occams' because Urist never shaves) Armok directly grants anvils to settlers in accordance with the metals they have available.

(Lol once reactions check for reagents in world gen (thus no steel without iron), Toady will have to address what dwarfs without access to iron do for anvils and then the question will be solved for real)

[locustgate]

A pick. The first dwarf baby sprang from the womb wielding it.

Isn't that true for all 'true' dwarves? On a side note Christ that HAS to hurt.