[1][2] Various historians and archaeologists have examined the Dobunni, including Stephen J. Yeates in his book The Tribe of Witches (2008), where he suggests that the latter part of the name possibly derives from *bune, a cup or vessel, with a similar meaning to the later tribal name Hwicce; both being related to the recognisable cult of a Romano-British goddess.

[7] The tribe lived in central Britain in an area that today broadly coincides with the English counties of Bristol, Gloucestershire and the north of Somerset, although at times their territory may have extended into parts of what are now Herefordshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire.

[11] Remnants of several fortified camps, otherwise known as hillforts, thought to have been occupied by the Dobunni can be seen in the Bristol area at Maes Knoll, Clifton Down, Burwalls and Stokeleigh – all overlooking the Avon Gorge – and at Kingsweston Down and Blaise Castle.

[citation needed] The Dobunnic territory contained two large towns (Corinium Dobunnorum now Cirencester, and Colonia Nerviana Glevum now Gloucester).

It is possible to identify deities associated with the landscape, for example *Cuda, a mother goddess associated with the Cotswold Hills and its rivers and springs, and Sulis Minerva at Bath.

[17] After the collapse of the Roman provincial government, the core of this area retained its territorial identity until the Battle of Deorham in 577 (regarded by some as a dubious event[18]), when the Saxons made advances as far as the River Severn.

It has been suggested that the area retained a distinct identity as a Christian sub-kingdom, instead of being simply absorbed into pagan Mercia, as a reward for an alliance against the West Saxons; and that this is evidence of a cultural continuity between the civitas of the Dobunni and the kingdom of Hwicce.

Numismatic evidence suggests that the Dobunni kings subdivided their land between a north and south zone, sometimes becoming unified under a single ruler.