Evolution

The first true men had tools and weapons only a little better than those of their ancestors a million years earlier, but they could use them with far greater skill.  He was also learning to harness the forces of nature; with the taming of fire, he had the foundations of technology and left his animal origins behind.  Stone gave away to bronze, then to iron.  The tribe grew into a village, then a town.  Speech became eternal, thanks to certain marks on stone and clay and papyrus.  Presently he invented philosophy, and religion.  And he peopled the sky, not entirely inaccurately, with gods.

Time passes; things change.  For each item on the opposite side, take the word on the left-hand side of the equation an “evolve” it a number of steps ito get a new word.  A word is evolved by moving each of its letters forward in the alphabet.  For example, evolving the word "HAL" one step would create "IBM", and "box" evolved three steps would become "era" (b>c>d>e, o>p>q>r, x>y>z>a; note that "z" evolves to "a").  As an added aid, each of the answers corresponds with one of the definitions at the bottom of the page.

Cobra	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __
Pecan	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __
Envy	Evolves to	__ __ __ __
Lean	Evolves to	__ __ __ __
Hide	Evolves to	__ __ __ __
Cheer	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __
Fusion	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __ __
Munch	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __
Sleep	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __
Chain	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __
River	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __
Latex	Evolves to	__ __ __ __ __

Answer Definitions

Jovial Sedimentary rock Psychoanalysis founder Cease

Design or arrangement Dock Coliseum Train track

Lustrous silky fabric Large Asian cat Wabbit Bar of Gold

“__ __ __ __” __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
 01 02 03 04  05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

Look in room 56, locker 56.

See Evolution:  Solution