> No human is going to be leaving such long and deep scars in clay with a pickaxe

> clay is an awful material to dig through.

> humans lack the force to drive a pickaxe in that fashion through clay.

All wrong. Digging in granite would be "awful". Digging in clay... Meh. I do it all the time. I have meet a lot of humans able to dig a hole into clay in fact, so I'm not the only one.

If you find shovels "intimidating" maybe you should try it more. Even small children are able to play with it.