  We study ~330 massive (M* > 10^9.5 MSun), newborn spheroidal galaxies (SGs)
around the epoch of peak star formation (1<z<3), to explore the high-redshift
origin of SGs and gain insight into when and how the old stellar populations
that dominate today's Universe formed. The sample is drawn from the HST/WFC3
Early-Release Science programme, which provides deep 10-filter (0.2 - 1.7
micron) HST imaging over a third of the GOODS-South field. We find that the
star formation episodes that built the SGs likely peaked in the redshift range
2<z<5 (with a median of z~3) and have decay timescales shorter than ~1.5 Gyr.
Starburst timescales and ages show no trend with stellar mass in the range
10^9.5 < M* < 10^10.5 MSun. However, the timescales show increased scatter
towards lower values (<0.3 Gyr) for M* > 10^10.5 MSun, and an age trend becomes
evident in this mass regime: SGs with M* > 10^11.5 MSun are ~2 Gyrs older than
their counterparts with M* < 10^10.5 MSun. Nevertheless, a smooth downsizing
trend with galaxy mass is not observed, and the large scatter in starburst ages
indicate that SGs are not a particularly coeval population. Around half of the
blue SGs appear not to drive their star formation via major mergers, and those
that have experienced a recent major merger, show only modest enhancements
(~40%) in their specific star formation rates. Our empirical study indicates
that processes other than major mergers (e.g. violent disk instability driven
by cold streams and/or minor mergers) likely play a dominant role in building
SGs, and creating a significant fraction of the old stellar populations that
dominate today's Universe.
